Surrender the Sun: A Post Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller

by A. R. Shaw

  After threading the needle by the light of the woodstove, she set to work. The first pull through the skin made her stomach roll. Maeve nearly lost it but pulled herself together, wiped away the blood, and stitched through the layers of skin.

  Afterward, she covered the wound in antibacterial ointment and wrapped a bandage around the entire arm. Then she stood and went to wash her hands. Turning back to Bishop and talking to herself with her hands on her hips, she said, “I don’t know what to do about the shoulder.”

  “Doesn’t it say in the book?” Ben asked.

  “No, I guess they figured in the case of a gunshot wound you’d go to the hospital.”

  “Mom, she’s moving!” Ben yelled from beside Louna.

  Maeve ran over to the couch and found the little girl stirring. “Ben, get a glass of water for her.”

  He ran to the kitchen while Maeve felt the girl’s forehead. So far, there was no sign of fever in either patient, but she figured if there was a chance, it would happen. Ben returned with the water, and Maeve said, “Louna, you’re all right. Can you hear me?”

  The little girl moved her hand to her throat, and her eyelids fluttered. “She’s trying to wake up,” Ben said.

  Maeve sat her up and held the cup to her mouth. A little of the water trickled past her small red lips, and a tiny stream spilled down the side of her cheek.

  “Is she going to die, Mom?”

  She had to tell him the truth. “I don’t know, Ben. Not if I can help it.”

  She laid the girl’s head back down on the pillow and checked for a pulse again. Knowing her lungs and esophagus were probably damaged from the hot air of the burning house, there was quite a good chance the girl would die.

  “She’s not going to die,” came a gravelly voice from the pallet on the floor.

  “Bishop! You’re awake,” Ben said.

  Bishop tried to sit up and recoiled from the pain in his shoulder.

  “Don’t try to move!” Maeve said. “You’ve been shot through the shoulder.”

  He suddenly looked frantic. His eyes were wildly searching the room. “Where’s my rifle?”

  “Right here,” Ben said, pointing to it on the chair next to him.

  “Door’s locked?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ben said, nodding his head.

  “How’s the girl?”

  Maeve didn’t know what to say. “She’s breathing but still unconscious.”

  He struggled to sit up a little more, and Maeve helped him. He looked at his right shoulder. “Did the bullet go through?”

  “There’s an exit wound.”

  “Good, but we’re going to need antibiotics. Do you have any in the house?”

  She shook her head no. “It’s illegal now to keep old medications.”

  Bishop nodded. “We can’t stay here. Whoever that was who looted that house, they’re organized. The others probably already found them, and there are clear tracks to this house through the snow. We have to leave before daylight.”

  He said just what she had feared before. “We can’t leave. Where will we go?” Maeve nearly shouted. “It’s freezing out there, and both you and this girl need medical attention. You can’t travel.”

  “Where’s my horse?”

  “I put him in the garage,” Ben said.

  “So there are tracks in the snow outside everywhere? You’re in danger here. We have to go now,” he said and began to stand.

  “Bishop, wait. Look at her,” she said, pointing to the child. She was as white as the snow outside, drained of all color. “She could die out there. She needs rest.”

  “She’ll die if we stay here, and so will you and Ben.”

  He looked around for his boots, and Ben brought them to him. He sat in a chair and began lacing them up as well as he could with the pain from the wound in his shoulder.

  “Your wound. It’s going to start bleeding again.”

  “Can you bring me a couple of spare T-shirts?”

  She cursed under her breath but left the room in search of one of Roger’s old T-shirts.

  By the time she returned, Bishop already had his belt back on. He sucked in a sharp breath when he pushed the compress on his shoulder. A bright red stream of blood began to make a river down his bare chest.

  “Take the first T-shirt and cut the seam open from the right sleeve all the way down to the hem.”

  She grabbed the scissors that she used to cut his thermal tee off of him earlier.

  He nodded when she was done and reached for the shirt. She didn’t give it to him, though. She knew he’d need help getting the shirt on while holding the compress with his left hand over his right shoulder.

  “I can do it,” he said, watching her as she approached him.

  She shook her head and ignored him while she slipped the opening over his head. “You need help, Bishop.” She opened the armhole and helped him slide his right hand through the opening.

  “Now, pull the shirt taut and tie it high under my left arm with the cut ends,” he said, somewhat reluctantly.

  She wasn’t sure if he just didn’t like people touching him or if he didn’t like her touching him. It didn’t matter to Maeve, though. He needed help, and she was the only one who could help him now.

  “Tighter,” he said as she pulled the excess material taut under his left arm. She pulled harder, and when she did he sucked in another sharp breath out of pain.

  “I’m sorry! Let’s push a few more of those towels under there to put pressure on the wound.”

  He nodded with his lips pursed in a straight line. She hated to hurt him, but it must be done.

  When they were through, she helped him put another T-shirt over the first and then his coat over that. Thankfully, he still had use of both arms.

  “That’ll do,” Bishop said and tested out his right arm to see what his range of motion was. “Bundle the girl up and Ben too. We need to get to Jax. He’ll know how to help the girl, and he has all the illegal antibiotics one could ask for.”

  “Who’s Jax?”

  Bishop stuck his knife into the holster on his belt and grabbed his AR-15 to sling over his back. His M9 Beretta, he replaced into its holster. Going to the front of the house, he looked out into the pitch-dark night. “He’s a hermit,” Bishop said and flashed a rare smile.

  “Wait, Bishop. I don’t know if I can trust you. I don’t want to leave my home and take my son out into the forest in this terrible cold. What if no one comes here?”

  Bishop looked at Ben, who was watching the two of them discuss things. She knew she shouldn’t express her concerns like this in front of her son, but there was no other choice now.

  “Take a good look at your boy. He’s alive now. He won’t be by sunup. Roger asked me to take care of you two when he was gone. You’re not going to stop me from doing that.”

  Maeve took a step away from him. “What is that supposed to mean? We don’t even know you.”

  “Your husband knew me, and he trusted me, and I’m going to keep my promise to him. Ben, get your gear on.”

  Her son scrambled for his coat and boots. She’d never seen him move so fast. In a way, she felt betrayed by her own son.

  Then, when she looked back to Bishop, she found his stare burrowing into her. In a calm but stern voice, he said, “Get your coat on, Maeve.”

  A chill went up her spine. With only those five words he’d said volumes. She didn’t ask what he’d do if she refused. She’d moved to the closet and put on her coat and stepped into her boots when she heard a noise in front of the house.

  Bishop looked out the front and saw headlights down the road the way he’d come earlier, and someone yelled. Then there were shots fired.

  “Move, now!” Bishop bellowed, and Maeve picked up the girl, who was wrapped only in blankets, while Bishop herded them into the garage.

  From there, he didn’t waste time. He pulled his horse out through the side door into the backyard and took the child while Maeve mounted the saddle. He handed
the girl to her and swung Ben up behind his mother.

  “Hold on to your mom,” he said to Ben while the sounds of shots and men were gaining on the house.

  He grabbed the horse’s lead in one hand and held his Beretta in the other and ran to the tree line.

  Maeve held on to the pommel while holding the girl, and her son held on for dear life. She hadn’t ridden a horse since childhood but didn’t even think about that as she and these children were being spirited away from killers who were now in her driveway. The last thing she saw before the total dark of the forest took over was headlights in her front driveway, and she heard the sound of her front window shattering in a volley of gunshots.

  Chapter 14

  Terrified by the loud gunfire, Ben had begun to weep as he clenched his mother’s waist, his head buried in her back.

  “Keep quiet,” Bishop whispered to them as he led Jake through the dark woods. “And keep your heads down.” He pulled them along and continuously surveyed their surroundings. They were nearly a mile northwest through the woods before Bishop broke his breakneck pace, though he still kept his guard up. If I keep this up, I’m going to pass out, and that’s not going to help them. Before long, they made it to a ridge, and what he saw when he looked down angered him even more. “Maeve, look,” he told her and pointed down into the darkness where not only was the original house smoldering, but her own house was up in flames as well as the neighbor’s to the south of hers.

  “Oh my God!” she yelled and tried to dismount the horse.

  “No, stay there. There’s nothing we can do.”

  He pulled them away from the scene and deeper into the forest while trying to ignore the searing pain in his shoulder. She wept quietly from time to time after walking another few hours. By then, Bishop knew Jake needed to rest. The light haze from the sun was beginning to creep over the mountains in the east, though they were within the forest’s cocoon and could only see a dim brightness between the trees. They’d finally made it to their destination when they reached a slight clearing. Had he not known there was a resident here, he would have walked right past; only a trained eye could have seen the few signs of human habitation there.

  “Why are we stopping?” Maeve asked. She was shivering in the cold, and at some point it had started snowing again. The red hair peeking out from underneath her knit hat was no longer auburn but white and crystallized. She’d barely put on her coat and boots before they’d fled the house, and the girl was only wrapped in blankets. He needed to get them into warm shelter quickly.

  “We’re here,” he said, and when he looked up to the sky, so did she, and snowflakes cascaded down upon them.

  “Bishop? That you?” an old voice asked.

  Bishop pulled his rifle from around his back. Maeve’s eyes widened. He put a finger to his mouth. “Yes,” he said, without knowing where the voice was coming from. “I’m injured and so is a child. We need your help, Jax,” he said as his eyes scanned the winter world around him.

  “You know better than to bring strangers here,” Jax bellowed.

  “I had no choice, Jax. We’ll be on our way as soon as you help us.”

  “No,” Jax said. “Take them away!” His loud voice echoed through space as Maeve jumped and trembled in the saddle.

  “We’re staying until you help us, Jax. There’s a little girl here. She’ll die if you don’t. She was in a house fire, Jax.”

  His words were met with silence…at first.

  “They’re all going to die,” the disembodied voice rang out. Bishop shifted his weight and spun to the right, his rifle out in front, ready.

  “Please!” Maeve screamed and flung her head up, the snow scattering away and revealing her red locks. “She’s not breathing, Bishop. She stopped breathing!”

  Bishop pulled Maeve from the saddle along with the child in her arms. They laid her out on the snow. Her bloodstained blond hair cascaded about her. She lay like a tiny angel. Her lips were blue as Bishop arched her small neck and began to breathe life into her torn lungs. Maeve cried on her knees as Ben sat atop Jake looking on at the futile scene before him.

  After chest compressions and blowing air into the girl, she began to breathe on her own again. Bishop cradled her.

  “Oh, thank God!” Maeve exclaimed.

  Standing with the girl in his left arm, he lifted his rifle with his injured right arm.

  “Jax! Enough, get down—” was all he had uttered before he saw three black lengths of cloth floating to the ground from above.

  “What are those?” Maeve asked.

  Bishop blew out a breath. “Blindfolds.”

  Chapter 15

  Holding onto her son, Maeve clenched each time she detected someone brushing up against her. The man known as Jax was not friendly in the least.

  “All I ask is that people leave…me…alone!” he hollered, and then there was silence for a time.

  “The child’s dying, Jax. The town has lost control. Looters are taking what they want and killing anyone they run across.”

  “So? That’s not my problem!”

  She had no idea what was going on. Bishop whispered to her that everything would be all right as he tied the blindfold over her eyes. She couldn’t see a thing and neither could the girl if she were conscious or her son who sat next to her. She had no idea where they were. All she knew was one minute Bishop was leading them in the snow by the hand as she held onto Ben outside in the freezing air, and the next minute they walked into a narrow passageway and the further they walked the warmer it became.

  The sound of a fire crackled somewhere nearby. Her son curled into her side, and she guessed he was listening to everything around them as she was. Bishop was the only one without a blindfold, which told her he’d been here before and perhaps the man named Jax trusted him.

  “She might not make it, Bishop. Her lungs, they’re scorched.”

  “Do what you can, Jax.”

  The man brushed past her legs again. He was between her and the fire, and each time he passed she could feel that lack of heat emanating from the fire. There were clanking noises and the sounds of him crushing something, then a pungent smell of wintergreen.

  “You’re all right, Maeve. Don’t worry. Here, drink this,” Bishop said and touched her shoulder as he held something to her lips.

  She swallowed a liquid that tasted like water but was tinged with something she didn’t recognize.

  “Rest while you can,” he said, and Ben laid his head on her lap after Bishop gave him a sip too. She felt a fur blanket being wrapped around them both. “There’s a pillow on your left—you can lie down.” Bishop nudged her in that direction, and she held Ben to her side as he helped her lie down.

  She grabbed his wrist when she felt him nearby. “Are we safe here?” she whispered.

  His breath caressed the side of her cheek when he said, “Yes. I won’t let anything happen to you, Maeve. You’ll have to trust me.”

  I have no choice, she thought as she drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 16

  He didn’t want to do it, but when Jax handed him the cup he’d just mixed and nodded to Maeve and her son, he knew it was a condition of their presence there. They would sleep while Jax worked on the girl and his shoulder. They needed the sleep anyway, especially since they were traumatized by the events that had happened earlier.

  Jax was a complicated man. He was brilliant but disturbed and went for long periods without any human contact. He only tolerated a few of them, the ones in the woods, and Bishop was one of them.

  He’d first discovered Jax while fishing early one morning. After fishing in one spot and coming up skunked, he was going to check out another area when he saw a barefoot man dressed in rags on a boulder, but it was what he was doing that caught Bishop’s attention.

  He was practicing what Bishop recognized as taekwondo with a little judo thrown in. His moves were clean and swift for a guy who looked to be in his sixties. The stranger was tall and thin and sported a
long gray beard, but what struck Bishop most was the man’s tormented eyes. He’d recognized the pain almost immediately because he knew without looking that he wore those same windows to the soul.

  Bishop had begun to back away the way he’d come, but before he knew it, the stranger held a Kimber 1911 handgun on him and carefully scissored a few paces to pick up a Winchester rifle leaning against a tree with his other hand. The man apparently wasn’t messing around.

  “This is my place,” he warned finally after staring at him long enough to study Bishop thoroughly. “Go find yourself another.”

  And he did. He hadn’t seen even a sign of the strange man, and then he came down with a cold so strong he thought it must be pneumonia. Bishop thought himself a dead man and was happy at the prospect, to be honest, but during his delirium, he’d seen the man standing over him inside of his cave, forcing liquids into his mouth, nearly drowning him at times. Bishop never could figure out how the man knew that Bishop was sick or how he’d gained entry to his home.

  Horrible smells of something the stranger was cooking over his stove permeated everything. He was torturing him, Bishop was sure of it. Somewhere in the nightmare, he’d asked him his name, and the stranger had given it to him as a gift. Then, suddenly, he was gone when Bishop’s fever broke. He’d left him with a pungent liquid to drink and didn’t set eyes on him again for another year after he’d recovered.

  Since that time, they occasionally met in the woods, only speaking with few words. Bishop brought him meat from fresh kills but wasn’t sure if that was payment enough for Jax having saved his life. Jax never seemed to appreciate it either way. He mostly wanted to be left alone, and Bishop understood.

  Now, he depended on Jax to save the girl and himself. He was sure an infection would start in his shoulder soon, and he’d be worthless to Maeve and her son then.

  There was much to do, too. None of this would get any better, and hiding in the woods was only a temporary solution. At the moment, they were hiding from the greatest threat—man—but soon the weather would trump man as the greatest danger.