The After Days Trilogy

by Scott Medbury

  “I have decided,” Sonny said. “We will go with you and, in my mind, the sooner we leave, the better.”

  “I know about Huian,” I said. “I overheard part of your conversation with her last night.”

  I half expected him to be angry at my spying and braced myself for an argument as he stared at me expressionlessly. In the end, however, he just nodded with a thoughtful look on his face. Perhaps there is something to that meditation stuff after all, something calming ... maybe I’ll have to give it a try someday.

  “Did you overhear the offer she made to me? About the truck?”

  “Yes. Do you think we can trust her?” I asked. “I’m worried it might be a trap, but it seems overly elaborate if she already knows where we are.”

  “The same thoughts crossed my mind,” Sonny said. “That is why I came up here to think. I find meditation brings clarity when my mind is clouded. In the end, it seems to me we have to trust her. We have very little choice in the matter. Stealing a truck is impossible with the army on alert.”

  “Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” I said with a grimace. “When are we going to go get the truck?”

  “I figured we would go this evening, as soon as it gets dark,” Sonny replied. “We’ll bring it back to the alley and load it tonight with the supplies we’re bringing. With me driving, wearing a Chinese uniform, while the rest of you stay in the back, we should have few problems. If all goes well, it should be safe for us to get started north before noon tomorrow.”

  “That timeline sounds good to me,” I said, going over it mentally. “I’ll let Luke know. I would like for he and I to go with you to get the truck.”

  “You know, it could be dangerous,” Sonny said. “Even if it’s not a trap, that parking garage is in Tiger territory. After what happened when you found Indigo, they’ll be on the lookout for you.”

  “I know, but everything is dangerous now. Luke and I won’t let you down. You can count on us.”

  “Alright, you can come,” Sonny said, nodding his head. “I want to bring at least one more person with us though. I’m thinking Arthur.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “Now I think I’m going to go see if I can sleep a bit more. It sounds like we’re going to have a long night ahead of us.”

  “I will try to come up with something more resembling a plan,” Sonny replied. “I’ll wake you up around noon and fill you in on the details.”

  13

  Allie woke me around 11:30 to tell me that Indigo was asking to see the guy who had rescued her. I thanked Allie and went to the bathroom to make myself look presentable. This consisted mostly of patting down my sleep-tousled hair, while looking at my reflection in the stainless steel mirror above the sink.

  Finally, I decided that I had done all I could and walked the short distance from the bathroom to the supply closet Sonny had given Indigo as a room. Strange, I felt as nervous as I had when we faced off against the gangbangers. I knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” I recognized Indigo’s voice immediately.

  “Okay,” I said, and opened the door. I found her sitting on the folded mat that was her makeshift bed, warm blankets gathered around her legs. She looked up at me and smiled.

  “Isaac, right?” she said. “I just wanted to thank you again. I say ‘again,’ but in all the hustle and bustle of last night I’m not sure I even managed to thank you the first time.”

  “Don’t mention it,” I said, cracking a smile. “Luke and I, that’s kind of our thing. You’re not the first damsel in distress that we’ve saved.” My smile faded a little bit, as my boastful jest reminded me of Sarah. I regretted what I had said almost immediately.

  “Still, thank you,” she replied, her voice had softened and I think she might have noticed the sadness written in my expression. “One day you’ll have to tell me about these other damsels you’ve saved.”

  “Does that mean you plan on sticking with us then?” I asked, trying to not sound overly hopeful. The last thing I wanted to do was to frighten her away by coming off as some sort of lecherous weirdo.

  “Yeah, if no one minds,” she replied. “This place seems safe and comfortable ...” she paused as she saw me bite my lip. “What is it?”

  “We are kind of planning on leaving the academy tomorrow morning some time,” I said. “It’s getting too dangerous here, we...found out something and it means we have to get out, and quick. You can come with us, of course.”

  “Um ... okay,” she said, a confused look on her face.

  I started talking. I told her about Huian and the Chinese Army moving a division to Worcester. I told her about the truck, including my fears about it but acknowledging that it was perhaps our only option. I even talked about travelling to the safe haven.

  She seemed as excited as I was about the prospect of a place where we could again relax in safety, especially as it was as close as just a hundred miles or so north of us. In the end, I talked to her for over an hour that day, about the future, but also about the past. I found myself opening up to her and telling her about my life before the Flu. It seemed I wasn’t good at keeping secrets from pretty girls, but it wasn’t just that – even though I’d only known her for a few hours, I felt that I could trust her with my life.

  She told me about her life, as well. She was born and raised in Worcester. Like myself, Indigo had just turned 15-years old; in fact, her birthday was two days before mine. While she had not been a total loner in school like me, she had not been one of the popular kids either.

  From our talk, I began to realize just how smart she was. It became obvious she was way more book smart than I was, yet she didn’t seem to have that in-your-face smarty-pants attitude so many smart people have. She told me she had grown bored of school. She had let her grades slip, despite her natural intelligence, and the fact she was perfectly capable of doing the work. Too many missed days and late assignments had torpedoed her marks to the point her near perfect test scores were not able to compensate.

  Her family had been a large, tightknit family, with many aunts, uncles, and grandparents, along with a dozen or so cousins, all living in the same neighborhood. Despite this, Indigo was like myself, an only child ... and now, she too was all alone in the world. She began to cry as she told me how close she had been to her cousin, Chloe, and I realized just how deeply it affected her when Chloe was murdered by the Tigers. To Indigo, that must’ve felt a lot like losing a sister.

  I asked her what happened to Chloe. Rather than getting more upset, I saw hot anger dry the tears in her eyes. They were gathering food in a small supermarket when three Tigers happened upon them. The Tigers were rude and suggestive to the girls, and Chloe, always the sassier of the two cousins, had smart-mouthed the ringleader. He shot her. Just like that. Indigo, and even the ringleader’s gang members had stood frozen in shock before Indigo ran for her life. She was shot at as she escaped, but managed to elude them until the day Luke and I had rescued her.

  Talking about it seemed to help and we changed the subject, but I felt a seething anger at the dumb cruelty of the gang.

  Speaking of loved ones made me think of my own sister, Rebecca. I almost had trouble picturing her face in my mind now. Even the memories of my Mom and Dad were slowly fading in the same way, like old photographs gradually losing their color, browning to sepia in a forgotten shoebox.

  I also remembered Amy, the Fosters’ foster daughter, and how she had tried to be like a big sister to me that last Christmas Day. I felt a little guilty about how unfriendly I had been. It was almost certain that she was dead now. After all, she had already started to feel ill before leaving for home that afternoon.

  But the loss of none of them, not my real family, not the Fosters, or anyone else, came close to feeling as bad in my heart as the loss of Sarah. I wondered if that meant something was wrong with me, or if it was just the fact that, for the first time in my life, I had lost someone that was in my care. Someone who had looked up to me ... trusted me with her life.r />
  A knock on the door broke the spell of our intense conversation. Karen stuck her head in. “Sonny would like to see you in his office, Isaac,” she said. “I already told Luke and Arthur. They’ll meet you there.”

  “Thanks, Karen,” I said, before turning back to Indigo. “I’ve got to go, but I’d like to come back and talk to you some more later, if it’s okay with you?”

  “Yes, sure,” Indigo said. “I’ve been enjoying our talk. It feels so good just to be talking about what happened and remembering the people we lost. It feels ... cathartic? I think that’s the word.”

  I smiled. One thing Indigo and I had in common was a love of words. I remember reading through a dictionary for fun during seventh and eighth grades. Yeah, it sounds nerdy, I know, but it’s a fond memory, given that there are no schools now and I guess there won’t be for who knows how long. No teachers, no students, nothing except survivors and an invading army.

  “I’ll see you later, then,” I said.

  Karen had already left. I looked back at Indigo and whispered, “I don’t know if Sonny has told the others about Huian yet. Perhaps we should just keep that between us for now.” She gave me a wink and a smile as I ducked out the door and started down the hall.

  I was amazed at how tough Indigo was, but also kind and sensitive at the same time ... I don’t know, the more I learned about her, the more I found myself liking her.

  When I got to Sonny’s office, I knocked once and then walked right in. Arthur and Luke were already there. Sonny sat behind his desk, glanced up as I entered, and motioned me over. Luke gave me a little wave, but Arthur didn’t look up as he intently studied a spiral notebook open on Sonny’s desk.

  “So I take it you came up with a plan?” I asked.

  “Yeah, most of the details are written down right here.”

  “It looks solid to me, man,” Luke said. “I just hope we don’t run into any unforeseen trouble.”

  Arthur slid the notebook in my direction and I looked over the plan Sonny had outlined, which seemed simple enough. Barring any trouble from the Tigers or a Chinese patrol, getting the truck would be easy.

  “So, what do you think, Isaac?” Sonny asked after I’d had a chance to read through the notebook.

  “I agree with Luke. It seems solid to me, given the circumstances.”

  “So when are we going to do this?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah, I’d like to get this over with as soon as possible,” Arthur said. Sonny checked the watch on his wrist.

  “We will leave here at 4:00. Make sure you have your stuff ready.”

  “Want to head over to the kitchen and grab some lunch?” Luke asked, as we left the office. “There are a couple of cans of chili con carne back there with our names on them.”

  After a hearty meal of cold chili con carne with beans, I grabbed a couple of mixed fruit cups and a spoon to take back to Indigo’s room. I still had a couple hours to kill before we went to retrieve the truck and everything I planned to take with me on the road was already in a pile next to my sleeping bag. With that in mind, and remembering how good my previous conversation with Indigo had been, I was looking forward to talking with her some more.

  Unfortunately, when I got to Indigo’s room, I found her already deep in conversation with Brooke and Karen. Not wishing to intrude, I simply gave Indigo the fruit cups and the spoon and let her know I would talk to her later.

  Not knowing what to do with myself, I decided to go find Ben and ask them what they had been searching for in the office building. I figured if Brooke was back, he would be, as well.

  I found him in our sleeping area, playing chess against Luke and losing. I watched in silence as Luke slowly dismantled Ben’s defenses. After four moves, Luke declared checkmate and sat back with a satisfied smirk on his face. Ben glowered at him across the small table.

  “So, did you guys find anything interesting in the office building?” I asked.

  “Not really, but I daresay we got what Sonny sent us there to get,” Ben replied. “Why he’d want all those toner cartridges is beyond me.”

  “Toner? As in printer ink?” I too found myself wondering what Sonny could want with a bunch of ink, especially since without electricity, printers simply didn’t work.

  “Yes, toner,” Ben said. “Plus several reams of printer paper, and as many rolls of tape as we could find.”

  “Beats the shit out of me,” Luke said, and then he chuckled. “I love a good mystery, but maybe he doesn’t even need them anymore; I mean, it didn’t say anything about printer paper and ink in his plan for this afternoon.”

  “I don’t know,” I offered. “There are probably a lot of different reasons why he might want that stuff, but none that I can think of.”

  “Are you going to take the rifle with you this afternoon?” Luke asked.

  A short stab of remorse pierced me, as I thought about the last time I held the rifle ... logically, I knew the gangbanger I shot deserved it but, emotionally, I wasn’t quite ready to take responsibility for ending another human life so brutally.

  “I don’t know. I was thinking about just sticking with a handgun on this one,” I replied, looking down at the chessboard.

  I wondered if Luke felt the same way about the Tiger he had killed with the crossbow. In the time since, I have found the killing gets easier, but the twinges of regret never really go away. The circumstances don’t matter really. It doesn’t matter how bad the other person was, it doesn’t matter how little choice I had for making the kill ...I always regret, and I always remember.

  “Do you want to play?” I asked, still looking down at the board.

  “Naw, I already had my fun,” Luke replied. “Maybe Ben wants to play again, you know, and have a chance to redeem himself.”

  “So, what do you say?” I looked over at Ben.

  “Sure, I’m always up for another game,” he said, reaching for the pieces to reset the board.

  The sky clouded over during the course of the day. This had the benefit of warming the night slightly, but at a cost. It was getting dark earlier, and there would be no moonlight. Sonny, Arthur, Luke, and I cautiously made our way back to the parking garage, keeping to the alleyways and side streets as much as possible, hugging the buildings so that none of us were walking exposed.

  The Chinese Army was on all of our minds, but it was the Red Tigers Sonny said we really needed to watch for. The parking garage was well inside their territory, and they were bound to be angry about losing some members the previous day. He seemed to know a lot about them, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.

  Thinking about the Tigers made me realize it had been less than 24 hours since I killed my first person. Well, I’m pretty sure he was the first; the looter I had shot in front of the Fosters’ home had already looked sick. Maybe the leg wound sped up his demise, but I’m certain it wasn’t fatal.

  The thought of meeting up with one of the friends of the Tiger I had killed chilled me in a way the cold night couldn’t.

  I also worried the others might have to suffer as a consequence of my actions. I didn’t say anything though and walked through the darkness in near silence. Moving carefully, and by a circuitous route, it took us nearly an hour to reach the parking garage. As we arrived, the first flakes of a fresh snowfall began drifting down from the now completely dark sky.

  The plan called for Arthur and me to stay near the parking garage entrance, out of sight from the street, but where we could keep an eye on things. Sonny and Luke would continue to the truck, make sure everything was okay, and disable the GPS using Huian’s instructions before picking Arthur and I up on the way out.

  Sonny and Arthur were dressed in their black uniforms, while Luke and I wore normal clothes and parkas. Nodding farewell to Luke and Sonny, I found a car to crouch behind which afforded me a good view of the entrance. Arthur followed the others as far as the stairwell leading to the other levels and faded into the shadows. I realize, of course, that he was not a rea
l Ninja, but he sure made a reasonable replica of one.

  Five minutes passed with agonizing slowness. While I knew it must have been at least a little warmer inside the parking garage, I honestly didn’t feel it. I was as cold as I had ever been since we left my hometown, and I placed my weapon on the concrete floor as I rubbed my hands together for warmth.

  It seemed very dark outside, but now that I was crouched in the darkness of the parking garage and looking toward the entrance, I could see just how much lighter it was out there. As I looked, I saw movement. Four figures, who, from their size, appeared to be either in their late teens or adults, stood staring into the garage. Tigers.

  Although the darkness meant I couldn’t make out their ethnicity, the fact they were not wearing uniforms and one of them was holding what looked like a spiked baseball bat confirmed they were members of the Red Tigers.

  They were speaking quietly, but try as I might, I couldn’t make out any of their conversation. They were too far away. After a time, one pointed toward the stairwell and two of the men moved toward it, while the other two began to move deeper into the parking garage. I felt myself tensing up. The two moving straight into the garage would be passing directly by me.

  Moving as slowly and quietly as I could, I picked up the .38, slightly comforted by the cold, heavy weight of it in my hand. The Tiger holding the nail-studded baseball bat came toward me and, as he got closer, I recognized him as the one Luke had christened bat-boy, the Tiger who had run from the alley.

  With him was another tall Asian teenager with a youngish looking face. Both of them had automatic pistols shoved in their waistbands. I slowly scooted back, keeping the car between us as they passed. The last thing I wanted to do was have to use my revolver. I knew any shots would bring their other two friends running and, if they were armed too, as they undoubtedly would be, I didn’t like my chances in a four on one gunfight.