“Hands off!” Lizzy started swatting at him.
Teddy batted her hands away and yanked the pack off of her.
“Hey, asshole! What’s your problem?!” Lizzy grabbed onto the pack and pulled it towards herself. “Let go!”
“Teddy, stop it!” Ein shouted.
As Teddy and Lizzy fought for control of the bag, one of the zippers gave way and bottles of pills scattered across the ground.
Lizzy kneeled and started scooping the bottles up into her arms hurriedly.
“Drugs, huh? Figures.” Teddy picked up one of the bottles and read the label. It didn’t sound like any painkiller he knew. “Lisinopril?”
“It’s high blood pressure medicine and antibiotics!” Lizzy reached up and snatched it out of his hand. Angry tears welled up in her brown eyes. She hastily stuffed the pills back into her pack.
“I thought they were something else… like…” Teddy’s voice trailed off mid-sentence. He lost his bluster and looked down at some of the other bottles sheepishly. He saw bottles of penicillin and amoxicillin at his feet.
“I know what type of pills you thought they were!” she shouted angrily. “I’m not an addict! The high blood pressure pills are for my grandma, and the others were for the clinic back at the settlement.”
Ein glowered at Teddy, brushed past him, and bent down to help her collect the pills.
“Why travel somewhere so dangerous just to get some pills?” Teddy rubbed the back of his neck and crouched down to help.
“Do you think I had a choice?” Lizzy scoffed. “The towns have been picked clean—we have nothing. The only ones who have medicine are the gangs and the government!”
“I’m sorry for grabbing your bag.” Teddy handed her two plastic bottles. “I thought you were grifting us. I didn’t think—” He was interrupted when she clawed the pill bottles out of his hand.
“You’re an asshole!” she snapped.
Ein got up and stepped between them. “He is sometimes, but he doesn’t mean to be.” He looked at Teddy and shook his head. “He doesn’t think… We’ll find you some more.”
He extended a hand down to her to help her up, but she swatted it away.
“I think you two have helped enough already.” Lizzy finished collecting what hadn’t already rolled off of the bridge and stood back up. She attempted to zip the pack back up, but the zipper was completely busted. She let out a frustrated sigh. “Just leave me alone.”
Lizzy wrapped her arms around her tattered backpack and started walking across the bridge towards the other side of the river.
Teddy stood up and dusted himself off. He extended his arms out at his side. “Look, I’m sorry. Let me make this right.”
“Just go,” she said without turning around.
Ein frowned at Teddy and punched him in the forearm. “Nice one,” he said quietly.
Teddy frowned and rubbed his arm. “Sorry, kid. I didn’t mean to cause all—” He stopped when he noticed twenty or so spooked crows take flight on the other side of the bridge.
“Cause what?” Ein saw the change in his expression, and his anger turned to alarm. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Might be nothing…” Teddy observed the road and saw something move between the stalled vehicles. They’re back, he thought. He frowned. “Or it might be something pretty bad. I think we got company waiting on the other side of the bridge.”
Ein’s eyes widened. “We need to warn Lizzy.”
Just as Ein started to run after her, Teddy placed a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.
“I’ll go. Just get that rifle out and be ready to pull the trigger if you have to,” Teddy said.
Ein nodded as he quickly unslung his rifle and aimed it out towards the roadblock on the other side of the bridge.
Teddy hurried after the woman while keeping a cautious eye out towards the congested street. He peered up towards the darkened skyscraper windows and the unsettling feeling of being watched.
“You can stop following me now,” Lizzy said as he came closer.
“Wait.” Teddy reached out and grabbed her arm.
“Get off!” Lizzy tore away and spun around to face him. Deep lines formed across her forehead as she furrowed her narrow brows at him and stepped back.
“I don’t mean you any harm.” Teddy held his palms up, trying to get her to calm down. “Look, I’m sorry about how I acted back there—it was a dick move on my part.”
“That’s an understatement,” she said with an angry snort.
Teddy nodded. “You can curse me out, slap me, or do whatever you want, but first, I want you to look at the cars in front of you… Please.”
Lizzy’s fiery gaze turned to puzzlement, and she slowly turned towards the roadblock. She stared at the cars. “Okay, what about them?”
“Do you see anything?”
“Yeah, a bunch of skeletons sitting in cars,” she said with annoyance.
“Okay, fair enough, but do you hear anything?” Teddy asked.
Lizzy listened for a few moments and then realized that the ever-present croak of crows and the chirping of birds was gone. It was eerily silent aside from the river’s babble.
“No… I don’t,” she said uneasily. “What’s going on?”
“I saw something move between some of those cars up ahead,” Teddy explained. “I think your friends are waiting for us on the other side. I’m pretty sure they’ll jump you the moment you start weaving through that mess.”
“Jesus…” Her blood ran cold. “What do I do?”
“Come with me back to the other side of the bridge… We’ll take shelter somewhere until those idiots find someone else to bother. Then you can go your own way, and we’ll go ours. Sound fair?”
Lizzy gave him a skeptical glance and then nodded. “Sure, I guess… But if you pull some stunt like you—”
“I won’t,” he cut-in. “Trust doesn’t come easily for me, that’s all.”
“Fine… Let’s go.” Lizzy turned and walked back towards Ein with the backpack against her chest.
Teddy followed.
As soon as they turned around, a gangly bald man wearing a faded hunting camo emerged out from in-between the cars at the roadblock and charged towards them. He brandished a steel bat over his head and waved it menacingly.
Ein pulled the trigger.
The surprised look on the man’s frostbitten face was almost comical. The bullet struck him in his protruding beer gut as the bat fell out of his hands. The dead man fell on his back.
“Run!” Teddy shouted.
Lizzy dropped her backpack and took off sprinting down the bridge towards Ein while Teddy followed at her heels.
A black man wearing a riot helmet and an old boiler suit emerged from behind a concrete barrier and pointed a sawed-off shotgun at their backs.
Ein quickly shifted his aim at the man and fired.
The bullet whistled harmlessly far over the man’s head.
Ein pulled the trigger again—
CLICK
He looked down at his empty rifle with horrified disbelief.
“He’s out of ammo!” a man hollered.
Heads started popping out of cover like prairie dogs. Militiamen crawled over the top of the vehicles and crawled around the narrow path between the stalled cars. They gave chase wielding clubs, machetes, and even a few beat-up military carbines.
Lizzy and Teddy ran past Ein.
Ein dropped the rifle and followed after them.
A few bullets whirled past and bounced off the asphalt.
“Don’t waste the brass!” someone far in the back growled. “They’re unarmed—we’ll get them!”
The gunfire stopped, but the militia continued after them.
At the edge of the bridge, Lizzy cut around one of the steel bollards and slid down the concrete embankment. She landed at the side of the choppy river.
Teddy and Ein slid after her.
Ein lost his balance, landed hard, and started rolling towar
ds the water’s edge, but Lizzy grabbed him just in time.
“Thanks,” he said weakly.
Lizzy helped him up to his feet and looked down the narrow concrete footpath that ran between the graffiti-covered embankment and the river’s rushing waters. “Now, where?”
Teddy noticed the river’s bend wasn’t too far away. It wasn’t much, but at least they’d be out of the firing line. “Follow me.” He hurried down the pathway and edged around the bridge’s support pillars that took up most of the walkway.
“Follow you where?” Ein asked over the water’s roar.
“Just hurry up!” Teddy shouted. “Go towards the bend!”
Ein and Lizzy carefully crept down the slippery pathway after him.
As Teddy passed under the bridge, two militiamen came sliding down the embankment in front of him.
One of the men tripped and tumbled into the water. He let out a strangled cry as the current pulled him under and away.
The second man, a burly figure who wore a snug Nashville P.D. tactical vest and a dirty bandanna around his head, caught his footing and started lurching towards Teddy. “They’re under the bridge!”
Teddy lunged at the man and grabbed his throat.
The man broke Teddy’s grip and snatched him by the collar. “Fucking thieving scumbags!” He started to lead him towards the water.
Teddy reached up with both hands and chopped against the sides of the man’s trunk-like neck.
The man’s face reddened, and the thin veins in his throat protruded as he cried out in pain. His grip weakened.
Teddy broke free and grabbed the man by his ears. He slammed his face against one of the support pillars repeatedly.
Blood shot out of the man’s disfigured nostrils as he desperately clawed at Teddy’s arms for some respite.
Teddy flung the brute off the footpath and into the water.
The man flailed as he got swept away.
“Hurry!” Teddy said.
The three of them ran out from underneath the bridge and went towards the bend.
Behind them, a few other militiamen tried to slide down the embankment but ended up disappearing into the icy depth below. Despite orders to do the contrary, a few militiamen fired down at the trio as they neared the bend, but all they managed to do was chip away at concrete.
On the other side of the bend, a large wastewater culvert pipe jutted out of the embankment. A steady flow of the previous night’s rainwater dribbled out of it into the river. Fungus and slime-covered the culvert, and the iron rungs that led up to it were rusty.
Teddy ran to the wall and started climbing up the rungs towards the opening. He became drenched within seconds as he neared the top.
“Are you crazy!?” Ein exclaimed. “We’ll be trapped for sure in that thing!”
“We sure as hell can’t stay down here in the open.” Teddy climbed inside the pipe and gripped the side. He leaned over and waved them over. “Move your ass—both of you!”
Lizzy went around Ein and ascended the rungs quickly.
At the top, Teddy helped her up. He looked back down at Ein, who was still staring up at them skeptically. “Kid, we don’t have all day!”
Ein looked over his shoulder one last time and then climbed up the rungs.
The inside of the culvert had decades worth of graffiti and juvenile drawings. Knee-high water flowed steadily through an iron security grille that had mostly rusted away. Beer bottles, small tree branches, and trash had collected against what remained of the grille and impeded the flow.
Teddy sloshed his way to a gate in the middle of the grille and pulled on it.
The old, corroded hinges popped off, and soon the gate was swept away along with an assortment of accumulated wood and old pieces of plastic.
With the blockage dislodged, the water lever rose and came up to their waist.
Ein shivered as the water chilled his core. “We can’t stand around in this for too long.”
“Yeah,” Teddy said as he peered down the culvert. It was practically pitch-black inside, but he figured that would work to their advantage. “Let’s go further in.”
“And then what?” Lizzy asked.
“We can climb up one of the manholes and get to the street, I imagine.” Teddy fished the lighter out of his pocket and spun the spark wheel, but it was soaked and couldn’t catch. “Dammit…” He sighed and dropped the lighter into the water. “We’ll just have to keep going until we get some daylight coming in.”
“Okay… but if I see a clown down here, I’m leaving both of you behind.” Lizzy wrapped her arms around her chest and followed Teddy and Ein.
“Kid, put your hands on my shoulders, so we don’t get separated,” Teddy said. “Lizzy, do the same thing with the kid.”
Ein placed his hands on Teddy’s slumped shoulders.
“Why does he keeping calling you a kid?” Lizzy whispered as she put her hands on Ein. “Is he your dad or something?”
Before Ein could answer, Teddy interrupted waspishly.
“Cut the side chatter. Worry about not getting separated and less about Ein’s fucking family tree.”
“Your dad is an asshole,” she whispered.
Ein laughed.
Teddy placed a finger against his lips and shushed them.
As they walked further down the culvert through the dirty water, the darkness seemed to swallow them up. Darkness surrounded then, and the channel seemed to grow narrow. Bits of trash and tattered plastic shopping bags brushed against their legs like slimy tentacles.
Lizzy let out a shriek as a rat swam against her thigh and latched on. She knocked it off and sent it tumbling back into the water.
“Are you okay?” Ein asked.
“Uh-huh…” she answered unconvincingly. “I’ll be a lot better once we’re out of here.”
“Just keep going forward,” Teddy said. “We’re bound to see something soon enough.”
Teddy bumped into a solid wall and stopped—both Ein and Lizzy halted abruptly.
“What’s wrong?” Ein asked. “Why did we stop?”
Teddy ran his hands against the slime-slickened wall and felt an old pipe that ran across it. He looked down both sides, but couldn’t see anything. “It branches off in two directions. Have a preference for which way we should go?”
“What would you pick?” Ein asked.
“I don’t know.” Teddy shrugged. “Right, I guess.”
“Then let’s go left,” Ein suggested.
Lizzy stifled a giggle.
Teddy grumbled and turned left.
They walked blindly in the darkness for several minutes before catching the wafting aroma of decay. All three of them knew what was floating nearby, and they all prayed that they wouldn’t bump against it.
Eventually, they saw sunlight coming down through a stormwater grate. The concrete wall had “1st Ave N—Broadway” stenciled on it in white lettering. An iron rung ladder led up to the grill and then to the street above.
“I’ll make sure that those fools aren’t waiting for us up there.” Teddy climbed up the rungs and hefted the cast-iron grate up. He stuck his head up through the hole and peered outside.
The cobblestone street ran parallel to the Cumberland River and ended in a cul-de-sac with a decorative grassy median in the center. There was a bus terminal nearby and a Hard Rock Café.
Teddy saw ample amounts of crashes, city busses with Red Cross evacuation destination banners strung across them, and even an overturned street trolley. He didn’t see any militiamen, however. He slid the grille aside and crawled outside. “Looks clear. Come on up.”
Ein and Lizzy scaled the rungs up onto the street.
Grunting, Teddy slid the grille back in place, stood up, and dusted the powdery rust off of his palms.
The three of them—soaked from head to toe, stood in the middle of the intersection and shivered.
“We need to get off the street,” Teddy said. “They’ll be looking for us. Plus, we need to get
inside and warm up. It’d be a damn shame to make it this far to die of pneumonia.”
“It wasn’t easy getting those pills.” Lizzy looked towards the bridge in the distance. “I don’t want to leave this place empty-handed.”
Ein frowned. “Teddy… Maybe we can search a few pharmacies once the sun goes—”
“Forget it,” Teddy interrupted. He started walking across the street towards the Hard Rock Café. “We need to get out of sight and take shelter. We’re leaving in the morning…”
“Come on, man,” Ein pleaded. “We can at least—”
“No!” Teddy cut-in again. “It’s a goddamn fool’s errand. We’re leaving in the morning. If she wants to stay behind and search, then she’s welcomed to do so.”
Ein watched as Teddy entered the café’s shattered entryway and faced Lizzy.
“My grandma will die without that medicine,” Lizzy said. “Her pressure gets too high… She already had a stroke last year. Another one would kill her.”
“I’ll find some for you once we get out of here,” Ein assured.
“How? The other towns have been looted clean…”
“Trust me.” Ein smiled. “I’m resourceful when I have to be.”
Lizzy smiled back.
The two of them walked across the intersection, passed underneath a giant red guitar that jutted out from the building’s awning, and followed Teddy inside.
CHAPTER 6
Teddy sat, staring out of the window of the Hard Rock Café’s second-floor gift shop, idly chewing on a toothpick. The sun was starting to set, and his stomach grumbled with hunger pangs. His soaked western attire had been replaced with a branded t-shirt, a leather Pink Floyd jacket, and faded jeans that already had a few pre-made holes in them.
His outfit wasn’t an ideal choice, but he didn’t have much to choose from off of the gift shop’s racks.
He couldn’t understand why anybody would pay anything close to the sticker price for jeans that were already beaten up. Still, then again, he had never fancied himself a fashion-forward individual.
The one thing that he did decide to keep were the boots, no matter how saturated the insoles were. He had made a lot of awful choices in his life, but he sure as hell wasn’t about to don a pair of Jimmy Buffet beach sandals in the middle of winter.
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