by James Hunt
“Let’s just check it out. If they’re not there, maybe they left a note,” he said.
Jordan stared ahead without response, examining the house for any movement. Julie opened her door and stepped out.
“I have to pee, can we go in?” she asked.
“Yeah, no problem,” Jordan said as he opened his door slowly.
Julie ran up the steps of the house as they stretched in the driveway.
“Feels good to breathe again,” Paul said while taking a deep breath. Though he was free from the potent fumes of gasoline, Paul noticed something else in the air.
“Smells like a fire somewhere,” he told Jordan.
They both looked around and saw a thick billow of black smoke rising into the air miles away, past the neighborhood.
“It’s like we’re back in Beech Creek,” Paul said.
“Don’t say that,” Jordan responded.
“Come on guys,” Julie said as she jumped up and down near the front door of the house.
Paul and Jordan walked to the house. Jordan searched his pockets in a panic.
“Shit,” he said to himself. “Where’s the front door key?”
He dug around in his pockets and pulled out a key chain. There were several keys around the ring, but he wasn’t sure if any of them were to the house. He hadn’t been to the house in over a year, and may have given the key back to Rachel, his wife. Jordan stopped in front of the door and fingered through each key on his ring.
“Why don’t you just knock on the door?” Julie asked.
“Julie, stop,” Paul said pulling her away from the door.
“This is not our home. Don’t forget your manners,” he continued.
Julie felt embarrassed, as if Paul had just called her out, but took his words in stride. Things were bad enough already. There was no sense in arguing with him. Jordan tried nearly every key on the ring and hadn’t any luck. The door was locked and no one was answering.
“Sure we got the right house?” Julie asked.
“Julie!” Paul said.
Jordan tried the last key and it worked, the deadbolt turned and unlocked. Julie cheered and jumped up again. Jordan slowly opened the door. The house was pretty much like he remembered; only this time it was weird to not be greeted by their dog Rosco, a Chow and German shepherd mix. Rosco wasn’t there and neither were Rachel and their two boys, Brian and Danny. Jordan walked across the foyer, his shoes clicked along the wood-paneled floor. He stopped by the staircase at the end of the foyer. Julie followed behind and stopped to examine the living room and adjacent dining room. The house was dark on account of having no electricity. It was tidy and well furnished, but lacking the warmth of family. Its appearance brought Jordan relief, as it looked as if Rachel and the kids had been there not long ago.
“Can I use your bathroom, please?” Julie asked.
“Sure,” Jordan replied. “It’s just upstairs, third door on your right.”
Julie trounced up the stairs and ran to the bathroom. Paul followed Jordan as he searched the living room, family room, kitchen, and dining room. Paul glanced at some framed family photos on the wall. The pictures were mainly of the boys. A few of them had Rachel in them. Jordan was noticeably absent from all the pictures. Paul kept the observation to himself. Jordan appeared to be growing frantic, pacing the house without direction. Paul tried the lights and the television in the living room. There was no power.
“I mean seriously, what is going on with the power?” Jordan asked out loud.
He opened the door to the back patio and looked outside. The toilet from upstairs flushed and Julie came stampeding down.
“It’s going to get dark in here really fast,” she said. Jordan walked past her and ran up the stairs. As Julie rejoined Paul in the living room, Jordan searched the three bedrooms upstairs. As far as he remembered, the boys shared a room, he shared the master bedroom with Rachel, and the den was her study, where she graded her student’s work, among other teacher-related tasks. Things had changed. The boys had separate rooms now. Brian had moved into the den. The master bedroom was still Rachel’s. Jordan noticed two indentations in the queen-size bed in her room. He opened her drawers and closet and found that much of her clothes were gone. He searched Danny and Brian’s rooms and found most of their clothes gone as well. Jordan stopped when he noticed that Brian, his eldest son, had a framed picture of him and Jordan at Universal Studios, Florida. He began to choke up but held it in. He took the picture off the wall and brought it with him downstairs.
“It looks like they left,” Jordan said as he entered the living room.
“Where to?” Paul asked from the couch.
“I have no idea, but their rooms were pretty cleaned out,” Jordan said.
Paul scratched his head in wonderment. “Any relatives in the area? Someone we can call?”
Looking weary and defeated, Jordan sat down on a recliner next to Paul. “None that I know of. I just. I don’t know what to do.”
“We wait,” Paul said. “We stay the night here and see if they show.”
“What about your wife?” Jordan asked. “I thought you would want to be on the road to Colorado by now.”
“There’s nothing I want more. But we’re burnt out. We need to rest. Julie needs to sleep in a real bed. That is, if you don’t mind our company.”
“No, of course not. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.”
Jordan tried to turn on a lamp next to him. He turned the switch a few times over, but nothing happened.
“I don’t know how long you would want to stay in a house without power, but you're welcome to.”
“It's either here or out in the street,” Paul said.
Julie looked through the kitchen, trying to hold back the urge to ransack Jordan’s pantry and refrigerator. What she wouldn’t have done for anything not resembling MREs. On the road they stopped multiple times at fast food places, but none of them were opened. It was the cruelest joke of all time for Julie.
“I wish I was a vegetarian,” she said out of frustration. “I could just live off the grass.”
In the middle of the kitchen was a counter top that extended to half the diameter of the room. On top of the counter sat a coffee machine, a knife holder, and some empty Tupperware. Most interesting of all, she noticed an enveloped letter with Jordan’s name written on it.
“Look on the bright side,” Paul said. “You still have a home here.”
Jordan looked at Paul with an annoyed expression but realized he was right. After all, his home was in far better condition than they had found Paul’s. He just missed his family and felt their journey so far to be pointless. Jordan looked around the living room to see if his sons were hiding behind the couch as they sometimes did when he came home, ready to pop out and surprise him.
“They’re alive, I know it. They have to be,” Jordan said.
“Of course they are,” Paul answered.
“I don’t think they’re coming back here,” Jordan said. “I can just feel it. They've left for good.”
Paul rose from the couch, curious at what Julie was up to. “Let me go find Julie,” he said, figuring he could give Jordan a moment. He walked into the kitchen and found Julie lighting a small candle with a lighter she had found in one of the kitchen drawers. Next to her was an opened bag of potato chips she had found in the pantry. She held the envelope to the candle examining it.
“What do you have there?” Paul asked.
“A letter to Jordan,” Julie answered. Paul walked over to the counter and grabbed the envelope.
“What is this?” he asked, reading the font.
“It’s a letter, like I said, probably from his wife,” Julie answered.
Paul held it up. He thought about taking the letter straight to Jordan, but then suddenly reconsidered.
“How do you know it’s from his wife?” he asked Julie.
“I don’t know, lucky guess,” Julie said shrugging. “Cursive spelling of his name i
s kind of a dead giveaway.”
Paul looked around in a paranoid manner. He clutched the letter in one hand and stuck it in his hip pocket. “What are you doing?” Julie asked.
“We need to leave tomorrow for Colorado,” Paul said. “Now listen to me, whatever is in this letter can wait. It can wait until we find your mother.”
“Are you crazy? You can’t hide it.”
“Keep your voice down. I’m not hiding anything. We give it to him when the time is right. We can’t afford to go on a wild goose chase across Missouri.” As he spoke, Paul looked over his shoulder.
“Every day, every minute is precious,” he said.
“We can’t keep it from Jordan,” Julie reiterated.
“You want to find your mom right?” Paul said slamming his fist on the counter. Julie looked up at him, almost in pity, and nodded along.
“Then listen to what I say. This is not an argument. I’ve made up my mind and that’s that.”
“Hey, I found the letter,” Julie said.
“Found what letter?” Jordan asked from the entrance of the kitchen. Paul froze and slowly pushed the letter further into his pocket.
“We were just discussing writing Julie’s mother and how great it would make her feel once she found it.”
Paul knew what he was saying sounded strange and a slight cringe came across his face. Jordan looked more perplexed than ever. Julie looked at Paul in abject disappointment. Paul turned to Jordan and could see deep worry strewn across his face. Whatever was in the letter, Paul knew it couldn’t wait any longer.
“We were talking about writing Samantha, because Julie found this letter sitting on the counter.”
Paul walked to Jordan and handed him the envelope.
“Where did you find this?” he asked.
“Sitting right here,” Julie said, pointing to the spot near the candle.
Her and Paul exchanged glances, she looked at him not so much with a smile, but with a less disapproving look than before. Jordan ripped open the letter and read it to himself immediately.
Jordan,
I’ve left message after message on your phone. If there is any chance that you make it to the house, I decided to write you this letter. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but the power has been out for days. The stores are running out of supplies. The gas stations are running out of gas. There was some major commotion in the city the other day, people were rioting and looting. The city has tried to get things under control but they’re overwhelmed. It’s not safe for me and the kids anymore as long as we’re this close to the city. Our move is only temporary, but we’re staying with my friend, Thomas. He has a cabin in Jameson. I hope you understand why we had to go. I pray that you’re safe. I know the boys miss you terribly. Find someplace safe, and I promise we’ll see you again.
Jordan read the letter again and again. The letter said things, but at the same time, it said nothing. She gave him no address. No way to find them. Who the hell was Thomas? Then it hit him. He had heard of Thomas before. Rachel brought him up in conversation one time, when discussing the other schoolteachers at her elementary school. In spite of all that was happening in the world, she was still going to leave him. Jordan had thought or hoped that the trial separation had been as rough on her as it had been on him. He had never even thought of seeing anyone else. What was he supposed to do with the letter? Was he to drive around Jameson hoping to stumble on his wife and kids? And what would Paul have to say about that? Jordan couldn’t think. He just stared at the letter trying to find some piece of information or proclamation of love that wasn’t there.
“Everything alright?” Paul asked.
Jordan looked up with sadness in his eyes. He folded the letter and put it in his pocket.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Listen, you guys can take any of the beds up stairs, I’ll sleep on the couch. Feel free to use what’s left of the hot water. We’ll pack whatever food’s left in the house and hit the road for Colorado tomorrow morning.”
“Okay, sounds like a plan,” Paul said.
Jordan did a beeline for the living room, barely able to look them in the eyes.
“Goodnight,” he said.
“Jordan,” Paul said.
Jordan stopped for a moment and turned around.
“We want to thank you for everything so far. You very well may have saved our lives.”
“I probably did,” Jordan said with a quick smile and quiet laugh. He then went off to the living room. Paul looked at Julie.
“I’m glad you did that,” Julie said. “It was the right thing to do.”
Paul nodded.
“So what does he have to eat around here?”
Julie slept in Danny’s room while Paul slept in Brian’s. Jordan was in a deep sleep on the living room couch. Everyone had taken showers that night, and by the time it was Jordan’s turn, the water ran cold. They had planned to leave at a reasonably early time the next day as to get a good start on the road. For Paul and Julie, it felt like Christmas morning. They only had to drive across Kentucky before they reached Colorado. They were close. A grandfather clock in the family room clicked back-and-forth with its pendulum swing. It was a fascinating piece of antique machinery that would run as long as the parts worked. According to the clock, it was four in the morning.
As the clocked chimed upon the hour, a small fire appeared outside the house followed by anxious footsteps. Another flickering ball of fire came and then a loud explosion. Jordan jolted up from his deep slumber. He could hear shouting and gunshots. He walked to the window and peeked beyond the curtains. The hair rose on the back of his neck as he saw, in the darkness, a group of armed people, camouflaged in green and black attire, marching down the street. They tossed flaming bottles of gasoline, otherwise known as Molotov cocktails, into the streets. The bottles erupted in a bright, fiery blaze and burnt for some time as police aimed their weapons from behind their vehicles. The rouge mob was assembling all across the neighborhood. Several shots were fired, causing Jordan to move away from the windows and duck behind his recliner.
Jordan could hear Paul running down the stairs and into the living room.
“What the hell is going on out there?” he asked, still in a daze.
Before Jordan could answer, a brick smashed through the living room window, nearly hitting Paul.
“Holy shit,” Paul said as he jumped out of the way.
“There’s several armed men outside. I don’t know what they’re doing,” Jordan said.
“Do you have any weapons in the house?” Paul asked.
They heard another explosion, the loudest one yet. It sent one of the police cars on its side. Several shots followed. Jordan saw some of the mob fall onto the ground after taking fire from the police.
“It’s a war out there,” Jordan shouted.
“Do you have any weapons?” Paul asked again, hiding behind the couch for cover.
“I have a pistol in my shoulder bag, but I left it upstairs.” Suddenly, Paul could hear Julie’s footsteps from upstairs. He shouted for her to stop as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Go back upstairs!” Paul yelled back.
Julie could tell that he was not messing around. She glanced at the chaos beyond the shattered window.
“Go upstairs and find somewhere to hide,” Paul shouted again.
Julie did as she was told, ran to Danny’s room, and locked the door. From the window upstairs, all she could see was the backyard, but the gunshots and explosions sounded as if they were right outside the door.
“What are we going to do?” Paul asked Jordan.
Jordan rose from behind the recliner and looked out the window. The police were exchanging gunfire with the group and bodies were falling left and right. One of the men, dressed in a full black hoodie and red bandanna across his face, attempted to launch a Molotov cocktail at the remaining police car but was hit by a stray bullet. The cocktail instead flew into
the air and struck Jordan’s newly purchased station wagon. After a fiery ball, the flames spread across the car like wildfire.
“Shit. No, no, no,” Jordan repeated as he ran to the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” Paul said from his helpless position.
Jordan threw the cabinets open in search of a fire extinguisher. He knew that there was one in the kitchen. He found it under the kitchen sink and ran back to the living room.
“Wait!” Paul shouted.
“If we lose that car we are fucked,” Jordan said as he swung open the front door.
Before he could take one step, the station wagon exploded and sent him flying back into the house. Car parts and rugged debris crashed through the windows, leaving the house open and vulnerable to the outside world. The remaining rouge mob outside had effectively taken out the police. Having free reign, they resorted to the looting and destruction of every house within their path. It was only a matter of time before they would be in Jordan’s house. Paul ran to Jordan and shook him.
“Wake up. We have to get out of here.”
Jordan’s eyes flickered open as he jerked upwards.
“The car?” he asked.
“It’s gone,” Paul said. “Those looters are unstoppable. We don’t have much time.”
Paul helped Jordan rise to his feet.
“Just where in the hell are we gonna go?” Jordan asked.
“Anywhere but here,” Paul answered.
Paul ran upstairs to get Julie. He banged on her door while trying to assure her that it was safe to come out. He tried to keep her calm, while at the same time stressing urgency. It was a delicate balance. Jordan surveyed the damage to his home and the fire burning outside in shocked awe. Paul ran downstairs with Julie. They both clutched their backpacks, ready to leave.
“Hey get your stuff,” Paul said, “we’re leaving.”
Without saying a word, Jordan walked upstairs and grabbed his backpack. He took one last look at Rachel’s bed and its large indentations on both sides.