by James Hunt
Mike glanced at the Beachums’ house and the two crude grave markers set up in the front yard. He thought about leaving Bessie’s body where she fell, but when he saw the cold, stiff corpse across the lawn, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. No matter what she’d done she wasn’t always bad, just at the end. He buried her in the front yard, along with her husband’s scorched body.
Mike pawed the bandage on his arm as he walked back to Nelson’s house. He could still feel the heat from the fire burning through. He looked at the once well-kept lawns and houses now in shambles. The neighborhood he came home to from the steel mill for the past twenty-five years lost to despair and betrayal.
“What happened to us?” Mike asked.
The question was quiet, meant only for him, in the graveyard of 24th Street. It had only been a week since the EMP blast. Everything from simple modern conveniences like phones, laptops, and tablets to life-sustaining utilities like water and power, were gone. They were back in the Stone Age.
The front door to Nelson’s house was open. Nelson’s home remained fairly unscathed after the neighborhood turned on Mike and his family. If it weren’t for Nelson, he would have burned along with his house.
Two backpacks sat next to the front door when Mike entered. They’d gathered what they could from the abandoned houses. There wasn’t much left, but they had enough to make it to Mike’s cabin in Ohio.
The pounding upstairs grabbed Mike’s attention. He walked up the stairs, looking at the family portraits on the wall: first days of school, vacations, holidays. The last picture Mike saw before watching Nelson bang his fist on his son’s door was a family portrait of Nelson, Sean, and Katie, who never made it back from downtown Pittsburgh the day of the blast.
“Sean, we have to go,” Nelson said.
Nelson jiggled the handle.
“Sean, open this door.”
“No!” Sean said.
“We talked about this, Sean,” Nelson said.
“We can’t leave without her,” Sean said.
Mike noticed the dark circles under Nelson’s eyes, the stubble thickening to a beard on his face. It took Mike all of last night to convince Nelson they had to leave. There wasn’t anything left for them here and if he wanted him and Sean to survive they had to leave.
Nelson pressed his left palm to the door, the contrast of the gold band around his finger against the blue paint.
“Mom would want us to go.”
The door flung open. Tears ran down Sean’s cheeks. The room behind him was messy. There were toys on the hardwood floors, his bed unmade, and piles of dirty clothes.
“She wouldn’t want us to go. She’d want us to stay here and wait for her to come home,” Sean said.
Nelson knelt down and scooped his son up in his arms. Sean threw his arms around his father’s neck, burying his face in Nelson’s shirt.
“It’s okay. Shhhh. It’s okay,” Nelson said.
Nelson’s voice cracked, a tear rolled down his own cheek. Nelson set his son back down and brushed the hair off of his forehead.
“Mom loves you so much, and the thing she would want the most is to make sure you’re safe. It’s not safe here anymore. That’s why we’re going with Mike. Okay?” Nelson said.
“But if she comes back how will she find us?”
“We’re going to leave really good directions for her. Right, Mike?”
Mike looked at Sean’s tear-soaked face. What he was asking the two of them to do was hard. He was asking them to leave their home, to leave their mother and wife, to leave all they knew on a chance to survive.
“Yes,” Mike said.
“Now, get the rest of your stuff ready. We need to leave soon,” Nelson said.
Nelson kissed Sean’s cheek and set him back down on the ground. Sean disappeared back into his room, gathering a few more toys. He patted Mike on the shoulder.
“I appreciate you taking us with you,” Nelson said.
“Of course.”
“It’s just hard on him, you know?”
“What about you?” Mike asked.
Nelson’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“I’m fine.”
Once Sean had finished packing his bag, Nelson and Sean moved all of the furniture in the living room into a circle. They placed a few rations of food and water in the center, hoping that if Katie were to come back to the house the formation of the living room would catch her attention. Mike wrote down the coordinates of the cabin and left a map tucked under the supplies.
“Let’s go,” Mike said.
They’d packed their rations. They’d said their goodbyes. Now they walked down 24th Street toward the highway. It was a three-day walk from Pittsburgh to Mike’s cabin in Ohio.
Mike’s fingers reached for the pistol on his right side. He felt the outline of the gun, making sure it was still there. The fire had destroyed all of his weapons and supplies, but he’d found the 9mm pistol tucked away in a closet of one of the abandoned houses they ransacked yesterday in preparation for their journey.
Every time Mike busted through a locked door, pulled open a drawer, or opened up a cabinet that wasn’t his he felt a stab of guilt shoot through his conscious. This wasn’t his house. These weren’t his things. He hated every minute of it. He had no right.
No right? This neighborhood that turned on him and his family had no right to threaten them. They had no right to try and take what was his. Mike closed his eyes, wrapping his mind around the one solid thought propelling him forward. He had to get to his family.
“Dad, you think mom will be able to find us?” Sean asked.
“Absolutely,” Nelson answered.
Mike watched Nelson and Sean walk together, holding onto each other. If it hadn’t been for Nelson he’d be dead. Nelson pulled him from the flames, risking his life and never seeing his family again. Would he be able to do that? If the choice between saving Nelson or being with his family was presented to him, which path would he go down?
When they turned onto highway 60, the sun peaked over the Pittsburgh skyline behind them. A breeze swirled trash and dust across their feet. They weaved in and out of the abandoned vehicles along the road. It was an endless parking lot.
“Look at all of them,” Nelson said.
“Keep an eye out for any older models, prior to 1980. They won’t have any microprocessors in them and wouldn’t have been affected by the EMP.”
“That’s how your family got out? Because of the Jeep?”
“Yeah.”
Mike thought about the once- a- month weekend trip where he and his family would go to get away from the city, enjoy the outdoors, and prepare for what was happening now. He reached into his pocket and felt the outline of the pocket watch that belonged to his father. His dad gave it to him when he was a boy. It was the only piece of technology he owned that still worked. It was as steady and reliable as the man who gave it to him.
Day 6 (The Cabin)
The gears grinded in the Jeep. Ulysses threw the shifter into third gear. He pressed the clutch and weaved in and out of the massive blockage of cars along Highway 60. He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the smoke rising from his son’s house behind him.
Ulysses shifted his eyes from the smoke to his grandchildren in the backseat. Freddy clutched his sister, Kalen, in the backseat and the two of them held on to each other. Ray sat next to them, his rifle propped up against his shoulder.
Anne sat in the front seat next to him. Her whole body was turned around. She dug her nails into the headrest to the point of almost puncturing them. Her eyes were glued to the smoke plume.
All of their bodies swayed back and forth. The top of the Jeep was off and the wind flew everyone’s hair around wildly. Bungee cords held down the supplies they packed the day before.
“Anne, I need you to tell me where I’m going,” Ulysses.
Anne didn’t move. Her face was frozen. Ulysses downshifted back into second gear, narrowly missing a black Lexus. Anne didn’t mo
ve. She held tight to back of the seat, watching the smoke shrink in the distance.
“Anne!’ Ulysses shouted.
With the combination of the roar from the engine, the wind, and the adrenaline coursing through his body, Ulysses’ voice was harsh.
Anne sat down in the seat and pulled open the glove box. She flipped through the stacks of paper and pulled out a map, focusing every shred of her will on the task of getting her family to the cabin.
“You’ll want to follow highway 60 all the way to I-376 and take that North; from there we’ll take 30 North to 39 West. That’ll lead us all the way into Ohio by Carrollton where the cabin is,” she said.
The wind kept flipping the map closed. Anne shoved it on the ground and glanced back behind her. The street was no longer in view. Her eyes shifted to her children in the back seat. Tears rolled down both of Freddy’s cheeks.
“Everything’s going to be fine, sweetie,” Anne said.
She gently cupped her hands around Freddy’s face and kissed his forehead. Her eyes flitted up once more at the smoke behind her, the only thing, still visible.
“Do we have enough gas to get us there?” Ray asked.
“We have a full tank now, the cabin’s only seventy miles away. Even with the gas mileage this thing gets we should have enough,” Ulysses said.
The more distance they put between themselves and Pittsburgh the fewer cars they ran into.
Ulysses watched the faces on the people they passed walking along the sides of the highway. Their mouths dropped at the sight of the Jeep. Each time the look was the same: shock followed by desperation. Arms waved, voices shouted, people ran for them, but they didn’t stop. Ulysses’ face was stone. There was no emotion upon hearing the shouts of their pleas. The fire that was consuming the home behind them was also ablaze inside him.
***
Ray watched the “Welcome to Ohio” sign flash by. His hands wrapped around the wood stock of the rifle. No one had said anything for the past hour. The howling wind was the only sound his ears had come across.
“How much further?” Ray asked.
“About 40 miles,” Anne said.
The abandoned cars became more sporadic. They hadn’t seen anyone for a few miles. Ray shifted the gun to the other shoulder and leaned up between the two front seats.
“We should start checking some of these cars for supplies,” Ray said.
“I don’t want us to stop,” Ulysses said.
“We might find something we could use in one of them.”
“Mike has everything we need at the cabin.”
“That doesn’t mean there won’t be something useful. We might not get a chance like this again.”
“Drop it, Ray.”
Ray fell back into his seat, shaking his head. It’s not that he didn’t believe Mike was well prepared. He was sure that the cabin would be well stocked with provisions. He just didn’t want to miss an opportunity. Ray knew the longer this lasted the more scarce resources would become, and while Mike was sure to have supplies, there was no way he would have enough supplies to last them the rest of their lives.
Freddy started to squirm in the seat next to Ray. He shifted in his seat and his leg bounced up and down.
“You alright, Freddy?” Ray asked.
“I have to pee.”
“Can you hold it?” Anne asked.
Freddy shook his head.
“Ulysses, pull over,” Anne said.
“Anne,” Ulysses said.
“Freddy has to go to the bathroom.”
“I really have to go, Grandpa,” Freddy said.
Freddy bounced up and down on the seat. The Jeep slowed to a crawl and pulled off onto the side of the road. Freddy climbed over Kalen and jumped over the side of the Jeep landing on the pavement.
“Kalen, go with your brother and make sure he doesn’t go too far,” Anne said.
“Ew, gross! I’m not going to the bathroom with him.”
“You’re not going to the bathroom with him, just making sure he doesn’t get lost. Now go.”
Kalen rolled her eyes and jumped out of the backseat. She grabbed Freddy’s hand and the two walked toward a tree line twenty yards from the edge of the highway. The trees were tall, and the area was thick with bushes.
From the back seat Ray could see a SUV parked fifty yards ahead of them. His feet hit the pavement and walked past Ulysses on the driver side.
“Where are you going?” Ulysses asked.
“I’m going to scout that car. Just pick me up when the kids get back.”
Ray removed the rifle from his shoulder and tucked it under his shoulder. His feet stepped lightly on the pavement. He scanned the sides of the road, looking for any signs someone was still close by, but couldn’t see anything through the thick brush.
The barrel of the rifle rose once he moved closer to the car. He peered through the back window, checking for anyone inside. He worked his way up to the driver side door and pulled the handle. Locked. He walked around checking each door, but all of them were closed.
The butt of the rifle smashed against the passenger side window. The glass shattered, but didn’t break. Ray gave the window another blow and the butt of the rifle crashed through the window. He cleared the crumbling bits of glass from the rest of the window and reached his hand through to unlock the door.
Ray brushed the glass of the seat and climbed inside. He searched the glove box, checked the back seat, under the seats, and the side door panel containers. A half-eaten packet of crackers, road flares and a bottle of water were his rewards. He looked behind him and saw the Jeep still idling along the side of the road. He leaned the seat back and put his feet on the dash. He pinched the corners of one of the crackers in his fingers and tossed it in his mouth.
***
“Just do it over there, Freddy,” Kalen said.
“I don’t want anyone to see me,” Freddy said.
“Well, by the time you pick a spot Grandpa’s gonna leave you.”
“No!”
“Better hurry up then.”
The thick layer of pine needles under Kalen’s boots made each step soundless. She wandered through the trees, glancing back at the road every once and a while making sure the Jeep was still in view. She could see her mom pacing back and forth through the leaves and branches.
The forest was quiet. She thought back to the many times her dad took her hunting. She remembered how much she fought him about it, how she complained that she didn’t want to go, but grew to love it. She could still hear his voice, don’t aim where the game is, aim where it’s going to be.
Kalen leaned her head back against the hard bark of the tree. Sunlight struggled to break through the dense leaves above. The trees’ long shadows covered the ground. She closed her eyes, completing the darkness around her. The snap of a twig caused her to open her eyes again.
“Freddy, don’t come over here and do it. I don’t want to se –”
A hand came up from behind her and covered her mouth. Her arms were pinned at her sides and she was pressed hard against a man’s body she didn’t know. He could feel his hot breath on her ear, whispering.
“Shhhhh.”
Kalen couldn’t see the attacker. Her breaths were sharp, sporadic. Her body shook. She could feel the grime of the man’s hand on her lips. The sour stench from days of not bathing engulfed her.
“Scream and your family dies, understand?”
She slowly nodded her head.
“Good.”
He turned her around against the trunk of the tree, keeping his hand over her mouth. She saw the yellow in his teeth, the bits of old food in his beard. The point of his blade dug into her chin.
“Kalen, I’m done,” Freddy shouted.
The man put his finger to his lips. She watched his eyes move in the direction of Freddy’s voice. She could feel her heart beating out of her chest, thumping faster.
“Kalen?” Freddy asked.
She could hear Freddy’s feet shu
ffling through the pine needles and twigs on the ground. The man’s face turned into a smile. He moved the blade from her chin and kept it poised in front of him. He wasn’t looking at her anymore. She saw the side of his ribs exposed. Freddy’s footsteps were just beyond the tree beside them.
“Kalen, whe-”
Before Freddy turned the corner Kalen shoved her foot into the man’s rib cage knocking him down.