Harper’s chest pounded in agony as another person ran over her. She struggled to stand. Failed. More pain, more people, more footprints upon her back with every attempt to rise. She held her hands over her head and moved into the fetal position. The blows softened, but they kept on coming. She could smell the pungent tear gas crawling her way.
Golden tongues of gas licked at her feet. Harper found her opening: a miniscule gap of sunlight opened within the human stampede. She rolled on her feet. Sharp pain erupted up her back as she found her footing. The tear gas gave her arm a stinging kiss, and then she was one with the herd.
Like driftwood, Harper was forced down the ocean current of people. As the yellow cloud neared, the more desperate the assault became. Harper could barely breathe within the horde of sweaty bodies. Those behind her collapsed in pain from the gas. Their cries rang in her ears. Eli and James were out of sight and earshot. She fought to get a better view and was groped and punched and shoved in return. Her nose and throat burned as the gas pulled at her. A balding man wearing a sweater tripped on car debris and fell, quickly overtaken by the indiscriminate cloud. The thump of launchers, the bounce of metal, and the hiss of smoke continued all around Harper.
As Harper neared the street’s end, a can zipped by her head and clocked a man in the temple. He staggered and clenched the newly bleeding bruise. The yellow smoke burst out from beneath his feet. Swift as lightning, the crowd screamed and split in every direction. An elderly man and woman blocked Harper’s path. She twisted by them and headed in a direction that she thought was east. The pockets of tear gas bloomed in every direction. A car blocked her path. Instinctively, she jumped, sliding her bottom across the cold hood and landing feet first on the other side.
“Mom!”
She jerked her head to the left. Golden smoke. Crashed cars. No Eli. She turned to the right and saw screaming pedestrians running through the smoke with puffy eyes and uncontrollable tears. Her son not among them. To her front, an office building. Rubbernecking bystanders watching through the tinted glass. James running to her. Eli banging on the locked door with his good arm. Like toxic reapers, two clouds neared him from both sides.
“Harper!” James yelled as he met her halfway and tried to take her by the hand. Not stopping, she refused him.
“Get that door open!” She ran to her son and rammed her shoulder against the glass door. Pain was her only reward. The onlookers inside stepped back. Yellow filled Harper’s peripherals. No, no, no!
She didn’t hear exactly what James commanded, but she hunkered herself and Eli down, and they braced themselves. A hunk of something broke the air by her face, and glass shattered behind her. She took Eli around the shoulders and sprinted through the devastated glass door, taking a few weak shards to the head and shoulders. Inside the dark office building, the white-collared workers and desk jockeys dived out of the way. She beelined for the exit door in the back and, with Eli’s assistance, burst through to the other side.
The alley was decrepit, skinny, and lined with Dumpsters. Harper never felt more relieved. She embraced her son.
“Mom,” he complained, but she didn’t let go. His warmth powered her with life.
“It’s okay. I got you.” She could not calm her rapid breathing and raging heartbeat.
“My. Arm.” He winced.
“Oh.” She pulled away, leaving a hand on each of his shoulders. She smiled apologetically. “Right. I’m sorry.”
With his big brown eyes, unkempt hair, and an air of rebellion, Eli looked like a mirror image of his father. She and James were only sixteen when they got together. Had it really been that long?
Concern awoke in Eli’s eyes. “Where’s Dad?”
The air left Harper. The cries of the city were fading in the blue sky touched with gold from the rising gas. She looked back at the closed door. Its white paint was chipped and discolored.
It rattled and swung open. James stumbled through the doorway and wobbled to a stop only a yard from them. Placing his palms on his knees, he panted. Dirty beads of sweat ran down the bridge of his nose and dangled at the tip. “Holy hell.”
He looked up at them and grimaced. “You good?”
Harper’s chin was bruised, her teeth felt loose, and her ribs were killing her. With pursed lips, she nodded.
“Good.” He took a moment to catch his breath and then rose. “Let’s get out of this hellhole.”
Harper shook her head. “I still have orders.”
James scoffed. “Screw your orders. You see what’s going on? This city is lost. We need to leave. Now.”
“He’s right, Mom,” Eli added. “We need to go.”
She was inclined to agree, but the army needed her. It wasn’t a job. It was her duty. “We need to reconvene with my unit and rendezvous at the Riverdale Reserve Center. They have medical supplies, weapons, functional cars--”
“Harper, I see where you are coming from. I honestly do, but we need to think of ourselves.”
“This isn’t negotiable,” Harper said firmly.
“Don’t talk to me like one of your lackeys. I’m your husband.”
“You’re right. My lackeys are faithful.”
“Do you guys really have to fight right now?” Eli stepped between them.
Frowning, James averted his eyes. Harper crossed her arms, hugging her sore chest. The Murphys were silent in the alley.
Harper let out an exasperated sigh. “Say we leave right now. Then what? No medical attention for Eli, no means of transport--you see what I’m getting at? We need to play this smart. We need to think of the long term. If we meet up with my unit--”
“No,” James interrupted. “We don’t have time. Without law enforcement and with jihadis running about, the people of this city are going to become animals. Hell, it’s already happening, and we can’t wait for it to escalate. If going to your unit will make you happy, by all means, do it. But I’m taking my son and leaving.”
Harper tried to disperse her frustration, but her ever-beating heart only added to her rage. “Not going to happen. Eli stays with me.”
Hands on their hips, they waited for their son to choose.
“We’re a family,” Eli said, wincing from pain. “We stay together. Dad, Mom knows what she is doing. We have to trust her.”
James frowned and looked at his shoes. Blood and dirt stained the leather.
Harper nodded. “I have good friends at the reserve center. They’ll let us in without a hitch. It’s our best shot, James.”
“Fine,” James finally submitted. “We’ll do it your way. But Eli and I aren’t staying in this city a second longer than we have to. Deal?”
Harper nodded. “Deal.”
Eli turned his doe eyes between the two. “What are we waiting for?”
Chapter Six
Concrete
They moved as one--mother, father, son--down the constricting alley. The tight corridor spit them out into the street. Across the concrete, pockets of yellow tear gas curled in the wind like stringy plants gently rooted on busted cans. Covered in soot and crusty blood, a family of five sprinted down the road and between two buildings. Another man hugged the door of a parked car, weeping. Red rashes covered his face, and puffy skin sealed his eyes. Like bloated snakes, more crawled across the road on their elbows, wailing and reeling from their encounter with the gas. The ambulances remained, but their contents were spilling out the back double doors. No EMTs in sight. The gurneys had been wheeled away, but a few unfortunate patients lay on the ground, unattended and left for dead. Riot shields, ballistics helmets, and improvised weaponry teetered on the concrete. Like stuffed trash bags, trampled bodies littered the street. Most of the crowd had evacuated the premises. Apart from the occasional cry, the streets were quiet.
“They really cleared this place out.” James’s voice trailed.
“This way,” Harper ordered, unsure why she was whispering. They crossed the next street, spotting a troupe of riot-equipped police officers. The
y paid her no mind and jogged in the direction of the White House. She wondered what the president was doing. Was he preparing a speech, rallying his forces, or soiling himself in the bunker?
The smoke from the explosion was far behind her, but her husband and son still suffered from the effects. As they moved, she noticed small tears of blood nesting in James’s ears and a nasty scratch across his stubbled chin. Across his brow and cheek, sweat droplets ran wavy channels down the dusty stain of soot. He blinked frequently, still trying to get the smoke and crud from his bloodshot eyes.
A brush of maroon swished across Eli’s blue hoodie. From the obese man that once crushed him, Harper assumed. He limped along, coughing and cradling his broken arm. It rested in a sling made out of Harper’s camouflage ACU jacket. Not the most comfortable or the most flexible fabric but better than nothing. His big brown eyes peeked out from the filth and grime that painted his face. His vision was locked on nothing in particular in a thousand-yard stare.
Harper led them in the opposite direction of Georgetown. With every step a guilty feeling pinged within her. She hoped that Corporal Bennett had made it to the recruiting station there. Harper planned to rendezvous with Commander McCulloch at the Riverdale Reserve Center. It would be a hell of a trek but would prove more fruitful than returning to her original center, run by a skeleton crew. Riverdale had guns, Humvees, and medical supplies, equipment far more useful than MREs and parachutes in this situation.
By the time she reached New York Avenue, the city’s chaos had revived itself. A rallied crowd of individuals encircled the front of the local convenience store. They were armed with baseball bats and tire irons. The bulk of the police force guarded the end of the road, which melded into Pennsylvania Avenue, the street that paralleled the White House’s lawn. The police were distracted by the hordes of people gathering and begging entrance to arguably the safest place in the city. Pleas were repaid with gunfire that rang out into the air and scattered the people like termites. Purple welts and bloody bruises exploded across their faces and bodies. A man in his twenties took a rubber bullet to the eye. He staggered drunkenly, firmly clenching the bloody eye, as Harper passed by.
James and Eli gave her looks of despair.
“Stay close,” Harper commanded. “And keep moving.”
She sounded authoritative but felt puny.
The road was heavily congested with useless cars. Some people hid inside, while others used crowbars and concrete chunks to bust the glass, not so subtly snatching the valuables from within. The police held their wall, preoccupied with the stubborn crowd of increasingly hostile bystanders. Cops attempting to step out of line were instantly commanded to hold their ground.
Harper stayed on her side of the road until they reached the Fourteenth Street intersection. “North,” she said, keeping an eye on the mob-encased convenience store they’d have to pass by. Eli stayed by her while James followed a few feet behind. They weaved through the obstructed crosswalk and to the opposite sidewalk.
Emerging from the shadows, a hooded man appeared before them. Harper skidded to a stop as he blocked their path. Sun reflected on the metal bat that he bounced in his palm. His black beady eyes locked with Harper’s. Back away, her look told him, and she tried to pass. He stepped in front of her. The word leaked out of a mouth of crooked teeth. “Wallet.”
James stepped up. “Are you fu--”
Harper stopped him with a raised hand and fished out her wallet. She pulled out the few crinkled bills inside and presented the money. The hooded man didn’t budge. His attention stayed on James.
“Give it,” Harper told James.
Her estranged husband groaned and removed his wallet, placing it in Harper’s open palm.
“Him, too.” The stranger pointed the bat at Eli.
“He’s a kid,” James complained. “He doesn’t have anything.”
The man’s face was stone. “Wallet.”
Harper shifted her eyes to her son. “Eli.”
Angry but cautious, the sixteen-year-old removed his wallet and handed it to Harper. She took the leather wallets and presented them to the man.
Beside her, Harper could hear the crowd heating up in front of the locked convenience store. Their chants synchronized with her racing heart.
The man took the wallets. “Wedding rings.”
“That’s it!” James roared. Anger turned his face cherry and his veins lively. He shoved Harper out of the way and raised a finger at the man. “Back off, or I swear…”
The stranger tightened his fingers around the bat. His crazed eyes shot wide. He took a step back, planting his foot.
Glistening with sweat, Harper opened her hands in a nonthreatening manner. “You have our money. Now go.”
Eyes on them, the man moved his wallet-grasping hand to the hoodie pocket.
Glass broke. Harper jumped. She could hear the chaotic clamor of people charging into the convenience store right behind her.
In a blur of color, James vaulted, swatting the stranger’s hand. The wallets and loose bills took flight. With a whooosh, the bat swung. James ducked the blow and sent his knuckles against the man’s chin. He staggered back, spitting out blood from his chomped tongue. James sent a right hook across his face, sending the man’s bottom to the sidewalk. Gracelessly, Eli swooped down and collected the wallets.
Around them, frenzied looters charged in and out of the store, cradling large bundles of snack foods, beers, and cigarettes in their arms. Bags and crates fumbled from their grasp and trailed behind them.
James dropped his knee on the downed man’s gut and yanked the bat out of his hands. “You’re a real tough guy, huh? Think you can rob my wife? My son?” He raised the bat to the sky.
Harper grabbed his wrist. He reared his head back at her. Savageness consumed his expression, and madness burned in his eyes.
“James.” Though commanding, her voice soothed the beast. He batted his glance between his wife, the robber, and the crazed vandals pouring out around him. Gingerly, he lowered the bat. The man beneath him trembled. James rose, keeping his fingers tightly on the weapon. He turned to Harper and opened his mouth to speak.
The shine of the metal blade caught Harper. “Look out!”
The man thrust the blade at James’s thigh. James jumped back, collapsing into the crowd and sending him and one other man to the ground.
Knife glinting in the sun, the robber leapt to his feet. Harper braced herself for the assault, but it never came. The man took off running down Fourteenth Street.
Eli was already hunched over his father when Harper twisted herself and rushed to him.
“Mom,” Eli held open his bloody palm, still wincing from his broken arm. The crowd whirled around them.
Harper swiftly knelt down and looked over her husband. He grimaced in pain. “Did he sever the artery?” Panic overtook his voice. “Did he? Did he?”
With every heartbeat, blood pumped out of the laceration. Harper pressed her palms against the thigh wound. Hot liquid seeped through and stuck to her fingers. James grunted. Like stirred hornets, the looters continued to buzz around them, obscuring the door and fighting for petty objects.
“Eli. Apply pressure,” she demanded. She didn’t remove her hands until her son was pressing on the wound. His broken arm made the prospect troublesome.
“Where are you going?” Eli shrieked.
“Inside,” Harper replied and forced her way through the shattered convenience store’s doors.
Dread and anxiety gripped Harper as she maneuvered through the violated shelves. Though it had only been a moment, the shop was stripped of its wares. Broken bottles and knickknacks were scattered about the tile floor. A man swept his arm across a shelf, knocking all its contents into a plastic basket. A few women and a large man with a crowbar beat the sealed cash register they had thrown to the tiled floor. Harper sprinted down the aisles. Finally, she was behind the counter and searching feverishly through the waist-high cabinet. The people attacking
the register gave her odd looks when she fished out the first aid. They advanced to her.
“Hand it over,” a woman demanded. The shoulder of her blouse was torn open, and blood hardened on a maroon gash.
Harper clenched the kit’s plastic handle. “Don’t take another step.”
The woman disobeyed. Harper sent the plastic box smashing against her cheek. She spit blood and staggered into a shelf. First aid in hand, Harper pushed for the exit, hitting anyone who neared. After two hearty whacks, they avoided her, and she made it outside.
The crowd was clearing around them. Some darted to the deli across the street or the CVS not far from their location. Others were visibly content with their spoils and escaped in every direction. In the distance, the police held their line. However, more had arrived. Some chased a few looters. Harper feared they’d be upon her soon. In this chaos, everyone appears guilty.
Her husband and son were on the sidewalk where she had left them. Eli scooted aside for Harper but kept his good hand on the wound. James grunted in pain. The blood soaked his cut jean pant leg, but the wound had stopped leaking. She unbuckled the kit and opened the flap. “This will hurt.”
“Do it,” James barked.
She poured the peroxide over the wound. James gritted his teeth as bubbles fizzed in the open cut like sizzling cotton. Harper studied the wound and removed the suturing equipment. “It’s not fatal.”
“Thank God.”
“Walking’s going to suck,” Harper informed him. She ran the hook through the two skin flaps, drawing them closer.
“Death sucks worse.” James’s joke turned to a grunt as Harper did another pass with the hook.
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