Eden Lost (Eden Rising Trilogy Book 2)

by Andrew Cunningham

  They greeted the woman in charge, Gloria, whom they had met once in town. She was a husky woman of some indeterminate age who, they had learned, had grown up on farms. She offered to show them around.

  “Most of the vegetables for the town are grown out here,” she said. “We have large crops of corn and potatoes, because they are filling, and we have to take that into consideration. But we also grow lettuce, beans, kale, carrots, beets … you name it. And then we have hay for the animals.

  “Who cuts it?” asked Lila.

  “A few years ago we found a couple of antique harvesters that are pulled by horse, but most of it we do by hand. It’s grueling work, but everyone in town chips in some time and we get it done.”

  “Not a lot of animals here,” said Ben, looking around.

  “Mostly chickens,” said Gloria. “The town’s egg supply comes from this farm. All of the other animals—the cattle, sheep, pigs, and the extra horses—are at the ranch.”

  “We’re heading there next,” said Lila.

  They spent a little more time at the farm, but had seen all they needed to. They were anxious to continue their tour.

  Back on the road, Lila asked Ben, “How are you doing? You’re looking more comfortable.”

  “I like it,” he answered. “Of course, maybe I just like the idea of not having to walk everywhere.” He stroked Moose’s mane. “But in all honesty, I think I’m feeling a connection. Moose seems to sense that I’m a new rider.” He laughed. “I think he’s taking it easy on me.”

  The wind began to pick up and black clouds appeared on the horizon.

  “We’d better find some shelter,” said Ben. “We probably have about ten minutes.” Over the years he and Lila had become amazingly accurate in predicting how quickly a storm would be on them from the time they first saw the clouds.

  “There’s a house and barn,” said Lila, pointing to a pair of structures about a half mile away.

  They trotted up the road, slowly increasing speed as the horses sensed the coming storm. They reached the house as the first drops of rain began to fall. It was an abandoned property. The fields were in use for hay, most likely by the Monett people, but the house and barn hadn’t seen any activity in years. The door to the barn had fallen off, so the trio, with Ralph following behind, rode the horses directly into the gloomy building just as the rain started in earnest. Lightning lit up the sky and thunder rumbled overhead.

  They tied the horses to some beams and looked around, using flashlights to look into the darker corners. The barn had been home to many animals over the years, but none were there at that moment.

  “Hey, look at this,” said Lila, shining her light into a garbage can. She pulled out a faded McDonalds bag. “Blast from the past.” They continued shining their lights and discovered a veritable treasure trove of artifacts from their old life in junk piles throughout the barn—broken TVs and computer monitors, a microwave, numerous lamps, and a washer and dryer.

  “Kind of makes you wonder if society was more advanced before the event, or if maybe we’re becoming more advanced now,” observed Ben. “I know they all had their uses, but it just looks like crap now.”

  “What are all those things?” asked Katie, so they spent the next hour explaining what each thing did. Not ever having experienced electricity, they weren’t sure how much of it all she comprehended.

  By the time they finished, the storm had passed, and they were soon on their way again.

  A few miles down the road, they saw the ranch. It was massive. Hundreds of cows and sheep were spread across the landscape, heads down and quietly chewing. The ranch itself was comprised of numerous buildings—a main house, a second building with several apartments, and three barns. Fenced off areas were full of pigs, goats, and other animals.

  “Impressive,” Ben said to Lila as they passed through the open gate into the ranch yard.

  A black man a few years older than Ben was fixing a fence. He was of average height, but looked bigger. He was shirtless, displaying a muscular body. Ben was immediately struck by the size of the man’s biceps.

  “That guy’s arms are thicker than my head,” Ben said to Lila.

  “I don’t know,” she replied with a laugh, “your head is pretty thick.”

  The man looked up from his work and saw his visitors. He peered at Ben and suddenly his face lit up in a smile. “Jordan,” he called out. “You made it!” He put down his tools and walked out to greet them. “I wondered what had …” He stopped. His smile faded. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

  Ben was confused. “I don’t think I know you,” he said, “But Jordan is my last name.”

  “No shit. You serious?”

  “Yeah.” Ben got off his horse and held out his hand. “Ben Jordan.”

  The big man shook his hand. Ben saw the initials USMC tattooed down the man’s forearm. “You’re fucking kidding me,” the man said. “Name’s Rindell. You’re really Ben Jordan?”

  This couldn’t be related to the Ben and Lila legend, thought Ben. Nobody knew his last name. In fact, Ben hadn’t even uttered his last name in years. There was no reason to.

  “You have me at a disadvantage,” said Ben. “And I’m more than a little confused.”

  Lila and Katie had dismounted. “This is my wife, Lila, and my daughter Katie.”

  He shook Lila’s hand. “Nice to meet you.” He looked back at Ben. “I served with a guy at Pendleton named Jordan. Looked a lot like you. He’d be older though.”

  Ben’s whole body shook. His legs suddenly couldn’t hold his weight and he sat down in the dirt. When he spoke, it came out as little more than a whisper. “My brother was stationed at Camp Pendleton. Aaron Jordan. He was a sergeant.”

  “Yeah, that was him.”

  Ben tried to stand up, but his legs wouldn’t work. Rindell reached down and helped him up. Ben leaned against the fence. Lila moved closer and took his hand.

  “Between the event and the earthquake … figured San Diego was gone.” Ben was trying to gather his thoughts.

  “I’m sure it is,” answered Rindell, a sadness in his voice. “I wasn’t in San Diego though. I was in Yuma for some training. Your brother, too. We were down in the lower levels of a parking garage. A dozen of us. Had a day off from the training and were going to hang out in Yuma—what a fucking boring town that was.” He looked at Katie. “Sorry.”

  Ben interrupted him. “Are you saying my brother might have survived the event?”

  “I’m saying your brother did survive the event. All twelve of us did. We hung together for a while, but then split up. People wanted to check on their families. I came home to Missouri—hoping that someone would still be alive.” His voice tailed off. Ben knew the meaning of that.

  “Your brother and another guy named Bullock, they took off for somewhere in the northeast. Jordan said he knew his family was dead, but had to see for himself.”

  “My brother is alive?”

  “We split up almost six years ago, but when I saw him last, yeah, he was definitely alive.”

  Ben sat down again on the ground. His legs felt like rubber.

  “I … I …” He didn’t know what to say. What could he say? He had just spent the last seven years assuming his brother had died in the apocalypse. His brain was a jumbled mess.

  Lila jumped in. “Are you positive that the Jordan you knew is Ben’s brother?”

  “Can’t be positive about nothin’ anymore,” replied the big man. “Just know that your boy here looks a lot like a guy I served with whose name was Jordan. Your brother a communications tech?”

  Ben nodded dumbly.

  Rindell shrugged, as if to say, There you have it.

  Rindell saw the look on Ben’s face and said, a little more softly, “Look, I got no doubt that the guy I served with was your brother. But I also know that a lot of shit has happened since then. He might be alive, he might be dead. Life and death is no big thing anymore. Either you’re ‘live or you’r
e not. People alive one minute and dead the next. He coulda died the day after I saw him last. You just don’t know. But let me tell you. He was a fuckin’ Marine.” He glanced down at Katie and shot Lila a look of apology. “If there’s anybody who woulda survived, it was him.”

  He continued. “Want to hear something funny? Reason we were headin’ for a bar in Yuma, was that we just found out that day that we were deploying to Afghanistan in a coupla months. Don’t think any of us even had a chance to call our families. We deployed alright. Straight to this shit wasteland.”

  Chapter 19

  Six years earlier…

  Aaron Jordan was nearing his destination. In a matter of days he would know the fate of his parents and younger brother. It had been a year since the catastrophe that ended most of the human life on the planet. He still didn’t know the cause, and doubted he ever would, but he knew it wasn’t just the States that had been hit. All the signs pointed to a worldwide event—no contact with anyone, no planes or helicopters from other countries … nothing. He had only been a Marine for about five years, but it was long enough. He could see the signs.

  The first few months had been spent with his buddies trying to make sense of it all. At first they attempted to be of help to others, but there were so few others to help. Frustration and sorrow set in and they lapsed into a month-long drinking binge. When one of their group committed suicide in a drunken stupor, it seemed to sober up the others.

  Then, by ones and twos they started to drift apart as the homeward tug took over. They all knew the answer to the obvious question—they knew their families were dead—but they had to prove it to themselves. What were their families doing when the end came?

  Aaron and Sean Bullock set out together. It was a logical pairing for two reasons: One, they were best friends, and two, Sean was from Rhode Island, less than two hours by car from Aaron’s home in Newton, Mass.

  By the time they got on their way, the west coast earthquake and the Midwest earthquake had already hit. At the time, they had no idea that they were separate quakes, they just knew that every step of the way was a struggle. It took them months to get home. They stuck as best they could to the highways, but found themselves venturing far and wide to find walkable ground. Decomposition of the bodies had reached a bearable point, but it still sickened them to see the thousands of human remains every place they walked. As Marines, they were supposed to be tough—and they were—but this was too much. Their training had never prepared them for death of this magnitude.

  Sean had grown up hunting with his father, so when they got tired of raiding supermarkets for cans of food—they had long since had their fill of C-Rations and MREs—Sean would shoot something fresh for dinner. Very quickly, Aaron translated his Marine Corps skills into hunting animals.

  They ran into little trouble—not that there weren’t some attempts by others to create problems for them, but that dissipated quickly. Although they no longer wore their uniforms—they had abandoned those many months before for the comfort of civilian clothes—there was no doubt in the eyes of any observer that they were military. One look at the way Aaron and Sean carried their M-16s was enough for potential troublemakers to give them a wide berth. Both men were expert marksmen, but luckily for most aggressors, they chose not to become the recipient of those skills.

  Aaron didn’t have to kill his first man until he was well into the trip east. They were somewhere in New York State—beyond the devastation caused by the earthquakes—when they ran across the girl.

  She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, and under different circumstances might have been pretty. But these weren’t those circumstances. They were walking through what had once been an affluent suburban neighborhood and had rounded a corner made up of an eight-foot high fence. Not being able to see around the corner, they ran into the girl. Or rather, she ran into them—literally. She was a small girl, but was running hard and hit Sean with a force that knocked him over.

  She didn’t scream, but the fear in her face was beyond anything Aaron had ever seen. She pounced to her feet in an attempt to escape, but Sean held onto her.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” said Aaron. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

  Sean was an imposing presence at 6’2”. Once over 200 pounds, the months of walking had slimmed him down. But the muscular upper body still complemented his height. He had also let his facial hair grow, giving him a sinister look. In fact, he was one of the nicest guys Aaron had ever met. Aaron, however, seemed more calming to her. At 5’10”, clean-cut, and with an easy smile, he was able to gain her confidence fairly quickly.

  “It’s okay,” Aaron repeated. “You don’t have to be afraid of us. I’m Aaron, and this is Sean. We’re U.S. Marines—well, we used to be.” It was the first time Aaron had used that line since the world ended, but he felt it appropriate in this instance.

  “What are you running from?” asked Sean.

  “Them.”

  “And who are they?” asked Aaron patiently. He had a feeling it might take a bit to draw the story out of her. He was wrong.

  “Ronald and James. We live in a big house with them. They make us do … things.”

  Aaron looked at Sean. “I think we get the picture. Is it just Ronald and James?”

  “And four women—me and Tiff and Sue and Roxy. They’ve had us there for a long time. I think maybe a year. Since a few weeks after … you know.”

  “How did you get out?”

  “I was taking the garbage out and just ran. I couldn’t go back.” Tears were streaming down her face. “And because I ran, they’re going to hurt my friends. That’s what they always said. That’s why we didn’t run away before.” She looked at them with a pleading expression. “Can you help them?”

  Aaron and Sean looked at each other, thinking the same thing. Finally, a way for them to be of some use.

  “Let’s do it,” announced Sean, getting to his feet.

  “It’s a few houses down,” said the girl.

  “Do they have weapons?” asked Aaron.

  “A whole room full of them. They keep it locked. But they each have a gun in a holster on their belt.” Her life suddenly looking less bleak, she was anxious to get back to the house. Now, instead of fear, Aaron could detect a feeling of payback emanating from her. He couldn’t begin to imagine what the women had gone through over the last year.

  It only took them a few minutes of walking until they came upon a large brick house—almost a mansion, thought Aaron—set back from the road. They heard voices as they approached. A man yelling and a woman screaming.

  “Oh Brittany,” a man called out in a sing-song voice. “We told you what would happen if you tried to run away. I know you can hear me. You show yourself or I’ll slit Roxy’s throat. She’s the ugliest one here, so it’ll be no loss. Get over here, Brittany!”

  They now had a good view of the front yard. Standing at the edge of the driveway about 200 feet from them were two men—one in his forties or early fifties, and the other in his late twenties. The younger man was standing to the side watching the proceedings with a grin, while the older man had grabbed a woman by her hair and had pulled her head back, exposing her throat. In his hand was a large gleaming knife. The woman was close to the older man’s age. She was screaming in pain and pleading for her life. Aaron could see the faces of two other women in the front window, crying.

  “You’ve got to the count of ten,” yelled the man. “One … two …” It was a slow count.

  “I don’t see us reasoning with them,” said Sean.

  “Me neither. You take out the young guy first. My guess is the older guy will probably let go of the woman in shock, giving me a clear shot.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “Guess I’ll find out how good I am.”

  Sean scrambled to a prone position, while Aaron kneeled against a rock. Both took aim.

  “… eight … nine …”

  Sean�
�s M-16 let out two loud pops, and the younger man crumpled to the ground.

  As expected, the older man’s lower jaw dropped in shock. He looked around in panic and let go of the girl. Still holding the knife, he turned toward the house and Aaron put two rounds into his back. He ended up sprawled face-first by the front door.

  Brittany left them and ran across the yard to her friend, who was lying on the grass gasping for air, fear having sapped the breath out of her. The other two women opened the front door and cautiously stepped over the dead man, looking at Aaron and Sean with a mixture of gratitude and fear.

  While the four women were hugging, Aaron and Sean checked the two men, just to be sure. Then they sat on the grass and waited, just observing the situation. If Aaron had to guess, the chances were these women didn’t know each other before falling victims to the now dead scumbags. It was clear, however that they were now fast friends—possibly the only family each would ever have again. Finally the women were calm, and the one called Roxy approached them with her hand out.

  “I don’t know how I can thank you … how we can thank you.”

  “No need, ma’am,” said Aaron. “Glad we could help. What do you plan to do now?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “If I can make a suggestion?” The woman nodded. “We’ve seen a lot of the country. It’s in pretty bad shape. I would urge you to find a settlement to join, but frankly, there don’t seem to be too many of them. In some ways, you kind of have the best situation right here. If you’ve been here a year, then you made it through a winter—and if the weather was as bad here as it was in other places, that was an accomplishment.” He looked at the roof. “Looks like those guys hooked up a woodstove.”

  “They did. It provides us with warmth and a place to cook.”

  “Then I suggest you keep this as your home. Without these guys, you can probably make a fair go of it.”