by E S Richards
“Some people are just like that,” Mia offered from the driver’s seat. “That’s why we should only stop when we need to.”
“What about spreading the news?” Jorge interrupted quickly, not liking the sound of what Mia was suggesting. “We agreed we would stop and tell everyone what we’ve found out. It’s the only way that’s fair.”
“Yeah, but come on, dude,” Jadon leaned forward, resting his arm on the back of Mia’s chair so he could angle his body toward Jorge. “We don’t exactly want to risk getting shot at just to tell a few hicks what’s happened. I doubt they’d even understand anyway.”
“That’s not the point,” Jorge huffed, his hold on his temper weakening the longer the journey went on. “We all agreed. We have to try, no matter what the people might be like. We can’t choose who gets saved.”
“We’re not saving anyone, though,” Jesse cut in. “Not really when you think about it. Sure, it sucks what happened, but what difference is it really going to make if we—”
“It’ll make a difference,” Jorge hissed. “I guess I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
The tone of voice with which Jorge delivered his last line made both Jesse and Jadon sit back in their seats, surprised by how bitter and hateful the Spaniard sounded. Mia looked across at her friend with a perplexed expression on her face. Jorge was rapidly becoming a difficult man to be around. Their relationship went through more twists and turns than a rollercoaster and much like one of those, it made her feel dizzy. She wanted to trust Jorge and wanted to be on his side, except he was making it increasingly difficult for her to even like him, let alone depend on him.
All conversation in the car fizzled out pretty quickly following that. Mia swapped seats with Jorge to give him a chance to drive about half an hour later, stopping to refuel the car and clean out the pipes. As they drove, the ash and dirt from the roads and surroundings was quickly starting to get stuck in the engine and particularly the exhaust. That meant stopping to clear it out fairly regularly if they wanted the car to keep on functioning. Mia knew that if they lost the vehicle it would be very unlikely they’d find another in working condition. It was only because the Mazda was constantly in use and they were repetitively servicing it that it continued to work. She knew any vehicles that had just been left standing throughout the ash fall would be too badly damaged to repair by now.
“Looks like we’ve got another live one up ahead,” Jadon remarked another hour or so later. They had passed several collections of houses a few miles back; none of them seemed to have anyone living there anymore. As a group, they qualified them as dead places, merely passing through without a second glance as it was too early to try and stop for the night.
“Ah, yeah,” Mia replied, noticing the plumes of smoke that were floating up into the sky from behind a couple of the houses. The air around them all was still dark and foggy, but the color of smoke made by a burning fire was a different gray compared to that which the ash cloud had left in the sky. It was slightly darker, a clear marker that people were alive in there. “What should we do?”
“We should stop,” Jorge replied firmly, his hands gripping the steering wheel more tightly as he spoke. With the Spaniard driving the car, the other four of them were really at his mercy. If Jorge decided to stop, then they were stopping.
“Well, just slow down first, at least,” Mia rationalized. “Let’s check it out before we get out.”
“Whoa—hang on!” Jadon lurched forward again. “That doesn’t look right.”
Peering out of the windows, the five of them all gasped as they passed by the first house of the few on the street. Every single one of the windows was smashed in, the glass from the frames covering the ground below. That wasn’t the weirdest thing though; painted over the door was a giant red cross—marking the house like a place forbidden.
The paint—as everyone desperately hoped it was—seemed to drip from the doors, weeping into the wood and bleaching the material forevermore. Despite that, it was still a bright red, gleaming in the dim light for everyone to see as they passed by. They couldn’t miss it. The houses had been marked for a reason and no one wanted to find out what that reason was.
“That looks…”
“No way,” Mia spoke loudly. “We are not stopping here. That is weird.”
Jorge peered at the other houses that lined the street as he drove along, the car chugging by as slowly as he could make it go. Even he had to admit to himself, this didn’t look like a place he wanted to stop. It looked like it was overrun with the plague or something, the painted crosses on the doors reminding him of warnings from old biblical tales. Without saying anything, he pressed his foot down on the gas and allowed the car to pick up speed again, driving out of the town before any of them could ask any further questions about what was happening there.
Following that, the group once again resumed their silence. It was an awkward atmosphere, Marcus, Jesse, and Jadon even feeling reluctant to talk amongst themselves in the back. But that was nothing compared to how tense the drive became once Marcus was driving, Mia sitting so close to Jorge her left leg constantly brushed up against his right. Jorge wouldn’t even look at her, his bad mood permeating the car and infecting everyone else too.
After several hours passed without seeing a single place suitable to stop in, they finally spotted a single house standing by the side of the road in the distance, a faint light flickering in the large front window. Mia almost found herself praying that it would be safe. Marcus pulled the car up slowly, a figure appearing at said window as he did so. Someone was watching them. Someone was inside and knew that they were there. Mia bit her bottom lip, trying to decide what to do. They were really pushing it with the driving now and she didn’t feel comfortable getting behind the wheel herself, let alone allowing Marcus to continue. It was pitch black and the car’s headlights barely cut a path through the darkness, and even though they hadn’t had much trouble with the roads so far, Mia didn’t want to risk it.
“Stay here,” she announced to the rest of the car. “Keep the engine running. I’m going to go and check it out.”
“I’ll come with you,” Jadon offered immediately, unbuckling his seat belt. “Are all the filtration masks back there?”
“Yep,” Mia pulled two out of the bag that sat between her legs and passed one forward to Jadon. “Thanks,” she said with a smile, looking shyly to where Jorge sat beside her as she spoke. She remembered a time when Jorge would’ve been the one offering to help her. How things had changed. “Be ready to drive,” she told Marcus. “We don’t know what we’re walking into here.”
Marcus nodded as Mia and Jadon climbed out of the car, quickly closing the doors to keep everyone else safe from the air. Mia wondered when it would be safe to breathe without wearing a mask again. From her calculations and what she’d seen so far, she believed it might never happen. Without doing tests she couldn’t say for sure, but based on how it had affected the residents of Tanner especially, Mia was reluctant to breathe freely until she was certain it wouldn’t damage her insides.
“What’s the plan?” Jadon asked as the two of them walked up the front porch, pausing in front of the door.
Mia looked over at Jadon before turning back to the door and knocking. “Whoever lives here already knows we’re here. We just have to see if they’ll welcome us.”
“I’ve got a gun,” a woman’s voice shouted from inside the house. “Back off or I’ll shoot.”
“Please!” Mia called back, putting her hand out to stop Marcus from immediately running back to the car. “We don’t want any trouble. We just need a place to spend the night. We’ll be gone in the morning. I give you my word.”
“Mommy, what’s going on?” A child’s voice could be heard inside as well, making Mia and Jadon both pause and look at each other. The aggression of the woman’s first sentence didn’t pair up with looking after a child—though Mia could understand the mother was likely just trying to protect her child.
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“We’ve got supplies we can share with you,” Mia called out again. “High quality breathing masks that can help you survive outside. We’re more than happy to share them with you.”
“Go back upstairs, Isabelle.” The woman’s voice came again from inside, addressing her daughter.
“Please,” Mia begged through the door. “We can help your little girl.”
Mia’s final plea met with silence from the other side, the woman’s voice and the young girl’s having faded away. Looking at Jadon, Mia tried to decide what to do. They needed to get inside and stay there. It sounded like there was only the mother and daughter inside. It wasn’t dangerous. This was the best chance they were going to come across for several miles. They had to take the opportunity. Just as Mia was considering trying a different tactic to get inside the house, she heard the lock in the door click and the old wooden entrance was tugged open.
“Hello?” Mia spoke, stepping forward and positioning herself in the crack that was visible through the door. “Please, can we come inside?”
The woman’s figure that Mia could see through the door paused for a second, looking her up and down before she finally opened the door fully. “Okay,” she ushered them in. “Come quickly.”
“Thank you.” Mia smiled at the woman once they were inside, pulling her mask down from her face. Jadon did the same beside her, the tall boy looking around the house quickly before returning his gaze to Mia and the woman. The daughter was nowhere to be seen, clearly having hidden like her mother instructed her to. “Thank you for letting us in. My name is Mia—is this your home?”
The woman nodded. “Yes,” she answered. “I’m Lois. I live here with my daughter. Where—where have you come from?”
“Miles away,” Mia replied with a slight smile. “There are a few more of us in the car—do you mind if they come inside too?”
“How many?”
“Three,” Mia explained. “Jorge, my colleague, and Jesse and Marcus, two of Jadon’s friends from college. Once we’re all inside I’ll tell you everything about where we’ve come from if you’d like. We really appreciate you letting us in.”
“Okay,” Lois agreed. “Okay, sure.”
“Thanks,” Mia gratefully replied, nodding to Jadon as the young man slipped his filtration mask back on and went outside to collect the others. “Is it just you and your daughter here?”
“It is now,” Lois replied, hanging her head in sadness. “My husband, father, and two sons were out on a camping trip when everything happened. I’ve waited here every day for them to come back, but there still hasn’t been any sign of them.”
“Oh my,” Mia remarked, her right hand moving involuntarily to her mouth as she spoke. “I’m so sorry.”
“I keep hoping they’ll come back,” Lois continued, the woman’s voice getting higher and threatening to break. “But I’m still waiting.”
Mia opened her mouth to reply just as Jadon opened the front door again, walking inside with everyone else behind him. Lois very quickly pulled herself together and welcomed them, guiding everyone into her front room and allowing them to remove their shoes and jackets. Everyone immediately relaxed and felt at ease in the house, a resounding difference compared to the situation in the car.
“Let me brew a pot of coffee,” Lois offered, “then we can chat.”
Following Lois into her kitchen, Mia was impatient to talk to the woman and find out a bit more about what had happened to her. From what she had learned already, Lois was a very stark reminder of how easy it was to lose your family. While she bustled around the kitchen, Mia received a longer explanation about how the rest of Lois’s family was missing and how—despite trying to go out and find them—she had no idea where they were.
It made Mia think of her own family back in Houston. The sudden reality hit her that they might not all still be safe and together. It was unlikely, but what if Chase had been at a friend’s house when everything happened? What if her father had been at the store, or if Riley had been playing outside and gotten lost somehow? Mia’s mind, which was normally rational and controlled, rapidly started coming up with reasons why something bad could’ve happened to her family. Her breathing increased as she worked herself up, her heart beating hurriedly in her chest. The worst thought ever occurred to her, causing Mia to go weak in the knees. What if she returned home and her family wasn’t even there?
Chapter 11
“This is crazy,” Blake whispered to Vic as they prepared to head back to his store. “You really think we can do this? You really trust all of those guys?”
“I do,” Vic nodded, giving his honest opinion to something he had thought about for several hours overnight. “We can’t let Houston be destroyed by what the Authority is trying to do. It’s not right. Jackson and the others have a good plan and we should be a part of it. We all need to work together to get it done.”
“Okay,” Blake replied, “we better get going then.”
In truth, that was all Blake had needed to hear from Vic. He had already completely bought into Jackson’s plan, the evening and night that the two of them had spent in his hideaway hearing stories and sharing secrets about what was going on in the city convincing him. They needed to do something to free the children from the Authority and Blake was one hundred percent behind Jackson’s plan.
It was impressive how quickly the faction had managed to band together once the Authority started storming through the city. Jackson had explained to Blake and Vic everything that was happening while they were hidden away in the old corner store. He told them about the first sweep through the city, gathering all the children they could find and shooting any adults who tried to stand in their way. Jackson had lost his wife that day, forced to watch as she was brutally gunned down in front of him and both of his sons. Blake couldn’t imagine such a thing, for the first time in a while feeling thankful that his family lived out of state.
A few other people in Jackson’s faction had shared their stories as well, each person recounting a tale of how their children or someone dear was taken from them. Blake almost laughed when they explained the Authority was claiming to be doing all of this for the good of the country. There were even people among the group who didn’t believe the stories about the toxic air, thinking there was more to the reasoning than that.
When it came to that part of things, Blake wasn’t sure what he believed. Everything had changed so quickly that it was impossible to keep his head up to speed with everything that was going on. The air being toxic to breathe due to the ash cloud was something he could very easily believe. All it took was one look outside to be reminded of how the city had changed, the dark cloud circling around it and trapping the residents inside. Apparently, it was the same everywhere—not that anyone within Jackson’s group had come from outside the city—their stories based on rumors and hearsay.
Once Blake and Vic had both been properly filled in on what had already happened, the conversation quickly moved on to what they were planning to do. Jackson revealed his plan to break into what they called the pit—the area of the theater district where all the children were being held. Blake’s knowledge of the surroundings came in handy here; he was able to supply additional information on the layout of some of the theaters he’d performed in. Working together deep into the night, they hatched a plan for a break-in that would hopefully cover all corners of the pit, saving all of the children.
The addition of Vic to the group was the one actual piece of the puzzle that made it all possible. Before him—and the arsenal of weaponry he had hidden away in his store—the faction was still trying to figure out how they were going to breach the walls. Now that question had an answer: explosives.
“What did you think about what that woman said?” Blake asked as he and Vic weaved through the streets of Houston, cutting a quick shortcut back to the store. “Emily? Emilia?”
“Emma?” Vic asked, picturing the woman that Blake was trying to remember in his mind. “The one who su
ggested all the children might not want to be saved?”
“Yeah,” Blake nodded. “Do you think she’s right?”
“She probably is, my friend. But,” Vic paused, “answer me this. Did any of the children get a choice in being there? They did not. So surely, by breaking a way out of the pit for them, we are only giving them the choice to escape? We’re not going to make any of them come with us; we’re just going to allow the option to be there. We’re giving them what the Authority did not.”
“True,” Blake replied, clicking his tongue against his teeth as he thought for a moment. Vic hadn’t completely understood what Blake was referring to. Blake knew they weren’t going to force any of the children out of the pit, but what if the Authority was actually doing a good thing by keeping them there? What if they broke the children out and then they all died, poisoned by the air in the city? Perhaps they were making a mistake.
Shaking his head, Blake tried to clear his thoughts, aware that he had to be fully behind this plan for it to work. When they were dealing with so many people’s lives, one uncertain motion or questionable step could change everything. He had learned that through the fake disasters he dealt with in his job—everything had to go exactly to plan or the shot was ruined. It was the same for the escape plan: every tiny part needed to work.
“I wouldn’t worry, my friend,” Vic interrupted Blake’s train of thought. “We are doing the right thing and we will do it well. Lives will be saved thanks to us, not put in more danger.”
Blake forced a smile on to his face, listening to Vic’s words and doing his best to believe them. It was bizarre how all these events had been put into motion, Blake stumbling into Vic’s store several days ago with absolutely no way of knowing how that one decision would send his life off on a tangent more action-packed than half of the movies he had acted in. He had to keep reminding himself that this was real life. He wasn’t just playing a hero now; he was actually trying to be one. And heroes didn’t shy away from the drama, they jumped into it. Headfirst. That was what Blake needed to do now. He needed to trust his gut and move forward.