by Nick Randall
She looked back at the gate, and her face fell. Suddenly it hit her that there might be people breaking through that gate, trying to get into their home, trying to hurt her family… but there might also be people wanting help. She turned to Roy.
“What if there’s people who come here and need help? Like if one of them is hurt, or they need food or a safe place to stay? We don’t know what’s going on out there, could be we’d have to let someone in.”
Roy stood in silence, slowly shaking his head.
“We’d let them in, right?” she asked cautiously.
He looked at her, and slung the hammer across his shoulder.
“We’ll see,” he said simply, and walked back towards the house.
The light inside the house was significantly lower without the windows open. They had to use flashlights, electric lamps, or even candles, during the day. Roy lumbered into the bathroom for a rag bath; the first thing they did when the power went out was turn on the water and fill up the sinks and bath tub with water, and then every vessel they could find.
They had bottled water, too, but it was sealed. Taking advantage of the working faucets gave them enough water to drink and bathe and cook with for a week so far. The disadvantage was that bathing meant filling a small bowl and soaking a rag and scrubbing yourself. No more luxurious hot baths with bubbles, or indulgent stress-relieving hot showers.
Josie went into Alex’s room, where the girl was laying in bed under the covers, reading a book by candlelight. Her little stuffed white rabbit was tucked in beside her.
“Hey, kiddo! How’re you feeling?” Josie asked, sitting on the side of the bed and stroking her daughter’s hair. Alex shrugged.
“What time is it?” the little girl asked.
Josie looked at her watch:
“About five in the afternoon you’ve been napping all day, lazy bug!” Josie teased, smiling and nudging Alex playfully.
They decided to start skipping insulin days and just giving Alex her shots every other day, just in case they couldn’t get resupplied for a while. The effect it was having on Alex was almost immediate. She was napping a lot, and was thirsty all the time, which Josie didn’t tell Roy about for fear he’d get upset about their water rations. Alex was also not eating as much as she should be, as a 10-year-old or as a diabetic.
Josie knew she’d start to lose weight soon, and there could be other more serious repercussions later. But what else could they do? Better to skip her shots on a controlled basis and have more when it’s needed than to act like nothing was wrong and then suddenly run out…
“I’ll get you some water, baby.” Josie said with a smile.
“And a sandwich?” Alex asked politely.
“What do you say?”
“A sandwich, please,” Alex replied.
“Okay. Be right back.” Josie said, patting the white rabbit on the head as she left. She knocked softly and opened the bathroom door.
“Hon?” she said.
Roy was leaning on the bathroom sink counter, using the now-empty sink to hold his small amount of bathing water. He was looking at himself intently in the mirror, and kept staring a moment longer before looking slowly up at her. He smiled politely.
“Yeah?” he said.
“She’s doing okay. Not as good as yesterday, though. I’m gonna make her a sandwich, we still have a few slices of bread left. If that’s okay.”
“You’re in charge of food, it’s your kitchen. I trust you to maintain small portions. We have to ration everything we have.”
“Yes I know, okay, sorry to bother you,” she started to shut the door.
With that, she went into the kitchen, and returned to Alex’s room with her sandwich and a 2-liter of water held indiscreetly at her side so Roy wouldn’t accidentally see it.
Alex devoured the sandwich and gulped down half the bottle of water before letting an impressive belch escape. Her eyes got wide as she looked at her mom sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Oh, excuse me, sorry,” she said as she covered her mouth with her arm and then wiped with her cuff. She looked around the room and at the boarded window.
“Daddy said something about bad guys, is it true?” she asked.
Josie blinked, unsure of how to respond. She took a deep breath, and put a hand on Alex’s knee, squeezing reassuringly.
“We’re just being careful since we live way far away from people, but there’s always the chance that somebody might come by who isn’t going to be nice, or maybe an animal that wants to find something to eat.” she said.
“I want to walk the perimeter tonight.” Alex said, like it was the most natural phrase in the world.
“What?” Josie said, taken aback.
“I want to walk the perimeter, like in this book I found on dad’s shelf,” she referred to the book in her lap.
Josie flipped through it: a non-fiction anthology of war stories from the Middle East. Josie shook her head as she put the book back on the bed.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetie.”
“You and dad have been working so hard all this time, and I can’t even do anything to help,” Alex insisted, remembering her manners at the end of her request. “I want to walk the perimeter. You can come with me or watch me from the porch.”
Josie thought about it, and looked at the bedroom door as if expecting Roy to be right there. She turned back to Alex.
“Alright, but you do one lap, on the inside of the fence, and I’m watching you from the porch.”
“Yes!” the little girl shouted, hopping out of bed and throwing on her coat and shoes.
“And since you already know how to walk the perimeter, you won’t be needing to read anymore about it,” Josie said in a stern tone while grabbing the book from the bed.
“Come on, I’m not even halfway through it yet!” Alex protested.
“You’re too young to be reading this, Alex. I’m going to have to talk to your father and read it myself before I give it back. You want to argue? You can forget about doing your guard duty.”
“Fine…” Alex relented with a huff, grabbed her air pellet rifle she kept by her beside and proceeded to the front door.
She grabbed the flashlight hanging on the doorknob and undid three of the four latches, the fourth being too tall for her. Josie unlatched it for her, and opened the door.
It was pitch black outside. A chilly wind blew overhead. The stars all shone so brightly it looked like someone had spilled salt on a sheet of black glass.
“Ok,” Josie said “Keep your light on, do one lap, and come right back. I mean it.”
“Yes, sir,” Alex said, shouldering her pellet rifle, clicking her heels, and giving her mom a salute.
Where did she learn to do that? Josie wondered.
Alex’s light danced in the darkness as she walked, her feet sometimes visible in the beam. Sometimes she would stop, and shine the light outside the fence, looking for something she thought she heard or just imagined she heard.
When she disappeared around the back of the house, Josie listened intently for her small footsteps, counting the seconds until finally she saw the little flashlight bouncing and dancing along the fence again.
When she reached the front gate again, she swept her flashlight once more across the treeline 150 yards away, gazing intently into the abyss. After a minute, she did a perfect about face, and marched back to the front door.
“All clear, commander,” she said with surprising confidence.
Josie stifled a good-natured chuckle, and closed the door, locking all the bolts and chains behind her.
“Alright, Private Foster, bed time,” Josie said, placing the flashlight back onto the door handle and following Alex to her room.
Alex put her air rifle next to her bedside, kicked off her boots, and pulled the covers back over herself and her white rabbit.
“Good night, mom,” she said, taking another long draw from her water bottle before blowing out the bedside candle.
“Good night, kiddo, see you in the morning.” Josie said, kissing her daughter on the cheek and softly closing the door behind her. She moved down the hallway and into her bedroom.
Roy was already in bed, laying on the side closest to the door, military boots and clothes folded on the footlocker at the end of the bed.
His Beretta 92FS 9mm service pistol sat loaded on the night stand. There was a time when Josie was bothered by that, but he’d taken Alex shooting a few times and taught her how to safely handle firearms, namely: don’t touch Daddy’s guns unless Daddy is there.
Josie looked slyly over her shoulder to see if Roy was watching; he wasn’t. He was absorbed in a notepad of logistics, calculating how much food and water they actually had, listing places to get more. The sight made Josie nervous. As she climbed into bed and lay there beside him, staring up at the ceiling, she spoke:
“You know, we could take the truck and just leave. Just drive, in any direction. There’s bound to be somebody who’ll know what’s going on. We’ll pack as much gas and food and water and supplies into the truck as we can, and maybe we’ll find someplace.”
“No, never,” Roy said flatly. “I know you’re scared. But this is our home. Our daughter’s home. Your home. We bought this place, built more than some of it, and we will not abandon it, under any circumstances. I can’t believe you’d even think of it.”
“I’m just scared, not knowing what’s going on is making me restless.” she replied, turning her head back to face the ceiling.
“We’re safer here than on the road, and can last a lot longer with all our supplies,” he said, smiling over at her and patting her hand on the sheets next to him.
“Alex wouldn’t make it very well on the road, either.”
“How’s she doing with the new insulin regimen?”
Josie shook her head and rolled over to hide her expression.
“She’s getting worse.”
Chapter 3
Ben Cooper thought back on the events that had led him to this moment, breathing in the cool October night air and exhaling out little clouds of mist as he warmed himself by a campfire.
One little act of arson, and he didn't even mean to do it. He thought about how fire has a life of its own, how it can sting like a blade and bring a wall down like a ten pound hammer.
But of course, fire can do more than that if you let it. Chimneys, for example, send offerings to the sky in the name of fire. In a book Ben once read, it explained how Native Americans would offer their dead to the flames.
And yet despite all the trouble fire brings with it, the way the flames caressed the logs in the campfire was just so beautiful and mesmerizing to Ben. It was nature’s version of TV and he could watch it and be entertained for hours.
The other campfires in the escaped prison gang Ben was with worked wonders for cooking the canned food they took from the prison, when they escaped a few days ago after the power had gone off from the electromagnetic pulse blast. They had been taking everything they wanted or needed from the abandoned towns along the way but food remained scarce.
There were twenty three members in the gang overall. They either slept in the few buildings of the abandoned little ghost town they were in or in the brush and the woods that surrounded it. It could have been years since anyone had lived in the area.
A few of the members had started work on shanties and lean-tos against the existing structures of the town, but work was mired with technical setback and nobody was ever working during the night like it was now.
It had been eleven days since the breakout. Eleven days of sunshine and toes in the nice cool grass. Eleven days of sleeping under the trees at night with fires lit along the way at every night. Eleven days of living off the land following the breakout.
Every gang member was armed and they were a powerful and well-coordinated force when working together, and for the first time in his life Ben felt like he was actually contributing to something.
But he was also scared, for himself and for others in the area. The gang members had confirmed their merciless nature back in the prison during the escape, when a few guards tried to stop them and Ben watched them either be shot or gutted.
Ben had tagged along with the gang for safety in numbers, but he wasn’t exactly enthusiastic to stay with them much longer. They were dangerous men and had been in prison for a reason. Before the EMP, they were criminals. Now, they were raiders marauding the countryside…and it was only a matter of time, Ben knew, before they would start to launch violent attacks on innocent civilians and homesteaders in the surrounding vicinity for their food and supplies.
“Listen up, I'm only gonna explain this one time,” Ojo, the gang leader, announced and everyone stopped what they were doing to listen. “If you want to leave, this is your last chance. You stay, and we’re in this together. But if you do leave, I’ll need to have your gun.”
It was Ojo who had released all the cell blocks and who had put the guns of the dead guards in the hands of those who would follow him. That made him the de facto leader of the gang and no one had ever challenged him for the position in the eleven days since the escape.
Ben looked around. Each of the gang member remained sitting or standing still where they were.
This could be my chance, Ben told himself as he looked down at the Glock 17 9mm in his waistband. This is my chance to walk away from this gang. Then I'll be a new man. I'll head northeast towards Montana and get a new start.
“What about you, Benny boy?” Ojo’s voice snapped Ben out of his thoughts, his cruel black eyes alive and swimming with dark thoughts. “Will you leave or stay?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Ben didn't like being looked at that way and he fought to keep his eyes focused on the fire.
“Come on, do you want to leave, or stay?” Ojo pressed, his eyes not leaving Ben’s.
One of the gang members began a deep rolling laughter that echoed out to the rest of the group. The men called him ‘Python’ from the tattoo of the large green constrictor that wrapped around his torso and neck. He rarely if ever spoke and was one of the few gang members not to have a gun, instead preferring the chainsaw that was always being cradled in his arms like an infant. Ben didn’t like him much.
“Well, since you’ve put me on the spot I guess I’ll leave,” replied Ben, instantly second guessing if that was the smartest thing to say, and his heart rate began to accelerate as a result.
“Very well,” Ojo nodded his head slowly as if teaching a child a new word. “You guys hear that guys, Benny boy’s gonna leave us! Alright then, Benny, hand over that Glock you got there. You can leave now. Gimme your gun without a fuss and I'll let you go with a couple cans of beans.”
Ben's mind was racing. He just sat there paralyzed, not sure what to think. Was Ojo really just letting him go this easily?
Ojo continued, politely: “Ben, just give me your gun. Then you can go peacefully.”
Every fiber in his body told Ben to not surrender his weapon…every fiber except the ones needed to reach his arm into his waistband and then deliver the gun into Ojo’s waiting hand.
Sure enough, Ben found himself lifting the weapon out of his waistband and handing it up to Ojo without a word.
Ojo performed a brass check on the pistol to confirm it was loaded and then gave Ben a little wink.
Suddenly, Ojo FIRED the pistol into the ground next to Ben’s leg! Ben’s ears were ringing and the hot brass of the ejected shell casing bounced off his shoulder!
His heart pounding, Ben scrabbled backwards away on the ground from Ojo. The gang members all around him began to laugh and jeer.
Ojo fired the pistol again by Ben’s leg, this time a couple of inches closer!
“Are you sure you want to leave, Benny boy?” Ojo laughed.
He fired the Glock into the ground yet a third time, again only a few inches away from Ben’s body.
“Okay, okay, okay, stop!” Ben cried out, holding up his hands in surrender.
The gang members continued to laugh. Some of them actually got up and walked over for a closer examination of the scene, seemingly not caring about the fact that Ojo was waving around a dangerous weapon in his hand.
Ben looked around. There were plenty of other guns in the camp but none of them were in hands of any gang members that seemed alarmed. Some escapees were wide eyed, others were hiding a grin, and others were clapping each other on the back and joking about what was going on.
The alarm bells went off in Ben's head. How stupid of me! How could I not realize how dangerous this is, these killers and rapists! These people are felons! I don't belong here, I never even belonged in prison. I didn't even do anything! I got to get out, just go!