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by Matthew Costello

  The question tested Christie’s decision to be honest with the kids. That decision … as best she could, she would let them know her thoughts, the possibilities. To discuss things with them.

  “I’m not sure.”

  Which was true enough.

  “But—there are fires. Doesn’t look right. Maybe they had problems.”

  Again she thought: honesty.

  “Maybe they have problems down there.”

  Quiet, then … Simon:

  “So we’re not going home?”

  The question itself sad.

  She took a breath.

  “I think … we need to go there. Get the stuff. Your father put things there for us. The things I told you about.”

  Another look at the sky. Darkening even as she spoke.

  “But what about them?” Simon said. “What if they’re still there?”

  Christie wished she had binoculars. All she could see were the smoky plumes, a few roads with fires still smoldering. It might be all over.

  “We won’t stay then, Simon. We’ll know. But we can get those things.”

  Don’t ask the obvious question, she begged.

  Don’t ask … where will we go then?

  And neither Kate or Simon did.

  “Mom’s right,” Kate said, turning to Simon, her voice free of any put-down, of any of the big-sister bite that had been constant … again, just one short day ago.

  The love she felt for those two right now … overwhelming.

  And though that vulnerability made her feel weak, defenseless—she had to think that in some way it also empowered her.

  As Jack showed her—

  As Jack showed them all …

  —you do what you have to, what you must, for those you love.

  Simon nodded at Kate’s words, also accepting this new version of his sister, borne out of their shared loss and devastation … and—

  Their horror.

  “Okay. We’ll go in. Get all the things we need. Doors locked—”

  The words an echo from Jack.

  “—windows shut. In, and out. Fast.”

  She took another breath, like a runner forcing the oxygen-laden air into her lungs, preparing for the sprint.

  And then she started down the curved road, to the flat plain of what had once been the protected island of their home and community.

  * * *

  The front gate lay open.

  Terrifying to see—this gate that had always been firmly closed and guarded.

  Now it lay open as if someone had let the farm animals out. Though in this case, the animals came in.

  The streets, though, looked normal at first, as Christie drove at a slow pace, not wanting to get caught in a blocked street that could turn into a trap.

  A dead end could be bad.

  No place to turn.

  So moving slowly was the way to go.

  While she kept looking left, straight, right.

  Amazingly—everything looked nearly normal.

  The house, the streets—all quiet.

  Down one road, she saw a smoldering pile of junk, but the fire looked as if it was in its last minutes, and nobody—

  (And nothing…)

  Stood around.

  Almost normal.

  A fire in the road and nobody doing anything about it.

  Christie reminded herself to keep her guard up, her eyes focused. That small sleep she’d had gave her only a brief recharge. But every few minutes, she needed to remind herself to keep looking, to stay alert—all this, with whatever emotion and fear-laden chemicals ran through her brain.

  Until they got to a corner.

  Sycamore Street and Oak Lane.

  Amazing, these roads named for trees, in this world now with trees of all kinds dwindling, endangered, vanishing completely.

  Oak Lane.

  Their street.

  She took the corner slowly.

  Their house was just ahead.

  12

  Home at Last

  Christie left the car running, sitting right outside the house.

  She kept looking at their home, everything looking okay, saying to herself, as if she needed someone to tell her … it looks okay.

  Door tight, windows all barred, metal gates down.

  Just the way we left it.

  Even the street seemed quiet.

  No fires on this block, she thought. Maybe whatever happened was done.

  Maybe it really was okay here.

  Then:

  “Mom—we going in?”

  Reminding Christie that time was slipping away.

  She turned to Kate, at the same time making sure to include Simon in the conversation.

  “Okay. Here’s what we’ll do. I’m going to go in and start getting stuff—”

  Simon groaned.

  “We’re not staying?”

  She looked right at her son now.

  “I don’t know, Simon. I’m going to see how things look. I mean, you saw—”

  She took a breath.

  “—you saw how the fence was down? Not sure we can stay until I know it’s safe.”

  She hoped that Kate would add some words of support, her new Kate, her new partner in this.

  But Kate sat quietly, maybe also wishing that they could just go into the house, lock everything up, spend the night, and, and—

  Sleep.

  Sleep.

  It sounded almost too good to think about. But Christie kept thinking about the fires, smoke billowing from homes.

  It could be a fatal delusion to let herself even think that everything was okay.

  The kids were quiet.

  The sky, a sere blue. Beautiful, as if its deepening color didn’t represent passing time, and what she feared the darkness might mean.

  She announced the next information with what she hoped was a voice that said that there would be no more discussion.

  “I will go in. Get the gas, the food—” a pause—“the weapons. Ammunition.”

  Thinking she had to say it. The guns, the ammo. They have to know how important they were.

  They’ve seen the worst.

  They know the worst.

  “I have stuff I want, too–” Simon began.

  She held up a hand.

  “I know. I’ll get some of your things, some of your toy guys, Simon, and pictures, and—”

  Kate, who had gone suddenly quiet, spoke up.

  Christie gave her daughter her full attention.

  “And what do we do?”

  Christie nodded.

  “Right. I’m going to go in. Get those things. Fill the trunk. The back. I’ll be fast.” A breath. “But if you see anyone come here, then you beep the horn. You see anyone, beep.”

  She kept her eyes right on Kate’s. “You understand?”

  Her daughter nodded.

  “Okay. No time to waste.”

  She hesitated about her next action. Too alarmist, was it needed? Would it only scare them more?

  But she knew what Jack would do.

  She reached under her seat and grabbed a gun with one hand, and—beside it—a few of the scattered bullets with the other.

  Then, the words almost devastating as she opened the door:

  “Love you both.”

  She opened the door.

  * * *

  She had never had an easy time opening the door to their home.

  Three different keys, never knowing whether a bolt was locked or whether her action had simply relocked the door.

  Needing to guess when all three were unlocked and she could do the simple human act of turning the doorknob, and enter their home.

  She fumbled; Jack could do this.

  But then the last key turned, and she grabbed the knob, hoping she had been successful.

  She gave it a twist.

  The door opened.

  * * *

  The first sensation, how much darker it was inside.

  Should she throw some lights
on? But that immediately sounded like a bad idea.

  There was still enough light to see, and why alert anyone to the fact that someone was at home?

  As soon as her eyes adjusted, things would be okay.

  The important thing: move quickly. Lots of lifting, carrying, ferrying to the car.

  No time for anything else.

  Make use of the damn light while she had it.

  * * *

  She began moving.

  She brought out the gas first, six five-liter plastic cans that took up a lot of space in the trunk.

  But gas might be the most important thing to have.

  Because—she told herself—if the gas stations begin to close, not just a few, but all of them, then what?

  They’d be stranded.

  Trapped.

  As she shuttled the plastic canisters into the trunk, she saw her kids. Watching her, she gave them a smile.

  Must have looked like a crazy smile.

  Look how much fun Mommy is having.

  Then, to the food, making choices here. Things that would be okay when opened and left unrefrigerated. Dry cereals that the kids hated, even with a ton of artificial sweetener on them. Cans of fruit and vegetable substitute, stuff that apparently never went bad.

  She had a few cans of real food … some treasured green beans, yams, peaches in syrup.

  Food to be saved for a special occasion.

  She took all of them.

  When Christie had finished getting the food into the car, the trunk nearly full, there were the final items on her shopping list. Guns. Ammunition.

  Especially … the ammunition.

  She looked over to the kitchen table, near the door that led to the basement and the garage.

  She looked at her gun on the kitchen table.

  Bring it down, or leave it here?

  Her arms would be full. Especially if she found some of Jack’s secret weapon stashes.

  She knew he had more guns in this house than he would admit.

  Didn’t want to scare her.

  And now, she wanted them all—if she could find them.

  Leaving the handgun, she walked downstairs.

  13

  The Car

  Kate looked at the door to the house, left open so her mother could carry things out.

  She had watched her mother bring out the gas, then the food to the back.

  She should let me help, Kate thought.

  Then: it’s so quiet here.

  And now, as her mother gave her a smile again, returning to the house, Kate knew what she was going back in for.

  More guns. And ammunition.

  She wondered if her mom felt the way she did. That this all seemed too horrible to be real.

  That in such a short time they were on their own, that their dad, the man they all depended on, was gone, and now it was up to the three of them.

  “Together,” her mom had said.

  “We’re in this together.”

  Kate accepted that. They all had things to do now. Even Simon was part of it, only a kid, just a boy. Someone who used to drive her crazy, but now, for a reason she didn’t completely understand, she suddenly loved him in a way that she never felt before.

  Stupid Simon.

  With the dumb things he said, and his toys that he battled with all the time in the backseat. Always making his soldiers or whatever they were … fight.

  Now, her brother, more than accepted.

  Almost sweet. She wouldn’t change a thing about Simon now.

  And as to his toys, and the fighting … why they all now knew what that was like for real.

  Even Simon.

  She looked over at him.

  She hadn’t noticed, but he was looking out the front window, then to the side, then, finally, to Kate in front.

  Their eyes locked.

  “You okay?”

  He nodded.

  Then: “Wish Mom would hurry.”

  Kate nodded in return. Then words of encouragement.

  “She’ll be done soon. Just getting some more things.”

  (Guns. Bullets.)

  Another nod from Simon.

  Then he pointed out the obvious, something that Kate had pushed away even as it became so clear.

  “It’s getting dark.”

  Another nod.

  “We should go. Back to that place. With the soldiers. And the people.”

  Simon’s words triggered a cascade of feelings, growing, swelling, suddenly too clear for Kate to deny.

  “I don’t like it here. The street is dark. Everyone’s gone, Kate. Why did they go?”

  “Guess … when the power went out—they left. Maybe some people are still in their—”

  She looked out front as she said the words she didn’t believe in.

  “—homes.”

  Simon cut through that fantasy, his voice low.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  And as Kate kept looking out front, she realized that Simon was right. Whatever light the sky had retained was almost gone. Just the merest hint of a deep blue and purple on the horizon ahead.

  She thought: we have to go.

  She wondered whether she should beep the horn. Get her mom to come.

  But that was only to alert her.

  If Kate beeped, her mom would be scared. She’d be angry.

  No, they would have to wait.

  Kate wouldn’t ask Simon how he was doing anymore.

  It only seemed to make him more scared.

  Instead, she did what he did.

  Looked out the front windshield, then to the right, then to left …

  Over and over and over.

  14

  Dark

  Christie grabbed the flashlight that Jack had stuck to the side of the downstairs wall, plugged in. Would it have any juice? It hadn’t been used since the power had gone out.

  Should be okay.

  She aimed at the ground, and switched it on.

  A small pool of bright light appeared at her feet.

  “There,” she said, the sound of her own voice calming her.

  She had thought of turning the lights on down here, but Jack had filled the basement with lights, the brightest area of the house. He did that—she knew—from his fear that the Can Heads might try to get in here, as if they could get through the metal barriers that sealed the downstairs windows and the thick steel plate that served as a garage door.

  No lights, she told herself.

  Let’s not advertise things.

  She went to a metal cabinet, next to a bench with tools suspended over it. She flashed a light on the bench, the tools hanging on pegs on the wall.

  Hammer, saws, pliers. Assorted screwdrivers. A sabre saw.

  She remembered when Jack would come down here and work on their SUV.

  Now she knew what he had been doing in the weeks leading up to their trip.

  So clear now.

  So obvious.

  As he fitted the vehicle with explosives, a switch—his terrible secret—made only more terrible by the way she learned about it, as he told her how they would escape the camp.

  What she must do.

  What he might have to do … left unsaid …

  Because—

  (And she knew this so clearly.)

  If he had actually told her what might happen, she wouldn’t have done what he asked. She wouldn’t have taken the Blairs’ car, and gone out the back of the camp while all the camp people, those, those—

  (Can Heads)

  —followed him, trapped him, thinking that his whole family was in the backseat.

  She still didn’t let herself think about what might have happened if she hadn’t gotten the kids out.

  But she did. They were here. Alive.

  She dug out the keys and unlocked what she once thought was just a metal chest.

  Jack told her once what was in there, under a layer of power tools.

  “If you need them, they’re there,” he had sa
id.

  Putting the flashlight on the nearby workbench, she searched for the key that looked as if it might fit the massive lock that kept the metal latch shut tight.

  The first key didn’t fit.

  “Damn it,” she said.

  She spread the keys out. Jack had taken only the one key to the SUV. Most of the keys were for things she didn’t have a clue about. She spotted another likely key, trying to imagine its serrated teeth sliding into the big lock.

  She stuck that in and slid it home.

  “Good.”

  A quick turn, and the curved U of the lock popped open, and she slid it out.

  As Jack had told her, a layer of tools on top, a rubber mat below them. She grabbed an electric saw of some kind, a power drill, tossing them onto the workbench.

  Her casual throw made the flashlight begin to roll.

  Barely aware of its movement, she saw the circle of light that had been aimed at the wall begin to move—and her hand flew out to the flashlight before it fell to the ground.

  Arresting its roll, she grabbed the light and pointed it into the well of the metal chest. To see:

  Guns. All embedded in a foam rubber mat. Two rifles. Did she even know how to fire them? One looked like a shotgun, with twin bores at the end. Two handguns, one so unlike what Jack took to work. A rectangular handle, the gun shaped like an upside down L.

  She’d have to figure out how to use these.

  And … and—

  Teach the kids how to use them.

  Boxes of shells. She’d take all of them. Ten, maybe twenty boxes.

  The insanity of the moment hitting her before she continued her inventory.

  Off to the right, a smaller metal chest, with a latch, unlocked.

  She flipped that open with her free hand.

  Round metal tubes. Some kind of switch on the top of the tubes.

  What were they?

  Then she guessed—though she had never seen them before.

  Bombs of some kind. Grenades. The thing on top, a switch or a timer.

  Should she take them?

  But a voice in her head said: take everything.

  She looked around for something to put the cache into.

  Over to the side, where the stairs led into the basement, she saw the table where she folded laundry.

  From a million years ago.

  From a life and time that wasn’t real anymore.

  On the floor: a laundry basket.

  With water use monitored, controlled, rationed … laundries were infrequent.

  But they still got done.