Barren Waters - The Complete Novel: (A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Survival)

by Julia Shupe

  “Let them have the truck,” he advised its owner sagely. “It’s not worth it.” The little girl squirmed in the man’s arms, let out a squeal, and Liam issued a threat of his own. “Drop the girl and take the truck. Do neither and I’ll shoot you both.”

  Surprisingly, the threat sounded stronger than Liam felt. The man’s wife dropped to her knees and sobbed, and Liam advanced another step.

  “I said leave the girl. Take the truck. We won’t stop you.”

  The moment hung in the air. The eyes of the child’s father darted from the barrel of Liam’s gun to the barrel of the one pressed against his daughter’s temple. “Please,” he whispered faintly. “Just go. Take the truck. Just set her down and go. Take whatever you want. Please, just leave her be.”

  The gunmen froze with indecision and Liam’s heart leapt into his throat. Clearly the men were torn. They didn’t care anything about the child, probably found her more of a nuisance than anything else, but they also knew that once they set her down, they’d lose valuable leverage. Liam would have a clear shot and they would lose their escape route. Liam ground his molars. As much as he hated to disarm himself, he had little choice. He knew these men wouldn’t leave without this truck, and without some type of assurance, they’d surely take the child and dump her somewhere in the distance. Slowly he lowered his weapon, set it on the pavement and lifted his hands in the air.

  “There. You’re free to go,” he advised. He kicked the gun, and with stomach clenched, watched it spin away from his toe. “Go. I won’t move for it.”

  The man with the child sneered. “You’re damn right you won’t.”

  The man edged closer, roughly swung the girl under his arm, and scrambled for the gun. With the weapon securely wedged in the waistband of his pants, he shared a meaningful glance with his partner, and in a moment that Liam wouldn’t soon forget, reared back, and tossed the child into the air. Despite her father’s efforts to catch her, she fell hard, skidded across the pavement, and came to rest several feet from where he crouched.

  Frozen seconds that felt like minutes passed in slow motion before her screams rent the air. She was okay. Thankfully. And Liam released the breath he’d been holding, grateful that she hadn’t hit her head and been knocked unconscious. As promised and beneath the threat of three guns, he remained motionless and watched as both criminals ran to the truck. They stepped up into the cabin, closed both doors with a snap, and fired up the engine. Where the hell did they think they would go? The entrance to the bridge wasn’t nearly as clogged as the bridge itself, but still. Even given the size and heft of the massive truck, Liam wasn’t sure it would make much of a difference.

  In awe, he watched as the truck rammed through the crowd. The driver pushed the vehicle to its limits. He crammed through the lanes to the outer shoulder, pressed on the gas, and propelled the truck into smaller vehicles. Hearing Olivia’s door open behind him, Liam hazarded a glance in her direction. Her expression matched his own. She seemed as amazed and bewildered by the driver’s stupidity as Liam was himself. Mouth agape, her gaze was fixed on the runaway truck that careened into others as it attempted to create for itself a new path through the lanes. To save themselves, the other drivers were hastily restarting their cars and trying to give the truck as much latitude as they could manage, but heedless to all and considerate of none, the Raptor surged forward till it reached the mouth of the bridge. There, it butted into a small opening between cars then hoisted atop a small Camry and barreled over its occupants. Screams burst into the night as the onlookers beheld the madness, and Liam began to succumb to a debilitating sense of dread. He wouldn’t be the only person with a gun. Not in this crowd. Someone was likely to stop this madness. And fast.

  Olivia had broken her trance and run to the woman and her child. Bent over them both, she spoke soft words that Liam couldn’t hear. He made his way over to help the driver. The man was dusting his trousers and staring after his truck with wonder.

  “All be damned,” he muttered. “Would you believe that? Look at him go.”

  The two men stood shoulder-to-shoulder and watched as the truck crunched past the Camry and attempted to climb the rear end of an Accord.

  “Best to let him go,” Liam said. “We can take you wherever you’re trying to get to.”

  The man extended a hand and answered, “Name’s Tom. I can’t thank you enough for this, but I don’t think we’re going much of anywhere tonight.”

  Together they moved toward the women and crouched low to inspect the child. Her mother was running her hands over her body, but thankfully there seemed little damage. Small scrapes, one long burn of road rash peppered with pebbles, and a bruised ego was the worst of it. Her father swept her into his arms and cradled her against his chest, and the intimacy of the moment incited a pressing need in Liam to return to his own child. He set his hands to his knees, pushed himself to his feet, and turned to Tom.

  “Like I said, you can come with us. We’re right over there and we’ll take you wherever it is—“

  The offer left unfinished, a loud popping sound caught their attention. Liam immediately recognized it as gunfire. He and the Raptor’s owner hit the ground and peered into the distance at a group of men who’d circled the back of the truck. Liam had to admit he was impressed. Against all odds, the thieves had actually made it onto the bridge. Though a path of devastation marked their passage, they’d crossed the entrance and were now wedged between smaller vehicles. Liam could hear shouting in the distance.

  “We need to get to my truck and get out of here,” he cautioned. “Fast.”

  The little company didn’t wait. They turned from the scene and proceeded in a crouching run to Liam’s Jeep. Beyond the glare on the windshield, Liam could see Jeremy on his knees, hands resting against the front seats, eyes wide as he observed the chaos around him. Mouth agape and eyes puffy from sleep, he held his father’s gaze a single moment before the world exploded. A great ball of orange-and-yellow light filled the sky and Liam was tossed bodily to the ground as if he weighed little more than a bag of soggy leaves. The sharp acrid odors of gasoline and smoke burned his nostrils, and a sudden dry blast of heat closed his throat. Suddenly he found that he couldn’t draw a breath. A coppery taste flooded his mouth and he pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek. He’d hit the ground hard. An eruption of stars glittered behind his eyes and he was quite certain his left bicuspid was knocked loose. The sound of small feet scampering across the pavement drew his attention and he lifted his head in panic.

  “No Jeremy! Lay down, son! Down!” he screamed.

  As if on a battlefield, perched on elbows and knees, he crawled toward his son and fell atop him just as the next explosion rang out. Together they huddled and waited till the blasts subsided. Liam wasn’t sure how many there were in total. He’d lost count somewhere around six or seven, but he could hear Jeremy’s soft weeping, and curled him tight against the protective curve of his body.

  Olivia, he thought suddenly.

  Around him the scene was chaos. People had abandoned their cars and were running away from the bridge as fast as they could. The fallen were being trampled and left behind, the elderly pushed and cast roughly aside. About fifteen feet from Liam, crumpled and covered with debris, Olivia lay silent and curled in a fetal position.

  Liam’s heart seized. He needed to get to her.

  “Jeremy,” he spoke softly as he lifted his son’s chin. “Are you all right?” Jeremy nodded gravely and Liam found his small hand. “Up on your knees then,” he prodded. “Close to me. Let’s go get Mom.”

  The two of them scuttled closer to Olivia and Liam knew a moment of intense relief when she stretched and flexed her muscles.

  “I’m fine,” she offered and she stretched her arms toward her child.

  Jeremy ran to her, and Liam turned to Tom and his family. On hands and knees, Tom was straining to see what had happened. Eyes wide, he turned and met Liam’s gaze.

  “The bridge,” he mut
tered in amazement. “It’s cracked apart. The entire front section has fallen in. If we had made it across the entrance we’d be dead right now.”

  Liam crouched beside the man and set his hands to the car that had sheltered them from the worst of the blast. Over its paneled side, he could see billowing clouds of smoke and debris.

  “Those explosions were cars,” he suggested. “Damn things caused a collapse.”

  Tom nodded and rubbed a smear of blood across his cheek. “Someone must have hit the gas tank of the Raptor and set off a chain of explosions. Those cars were packed too closely together.”

  “All those people,” Olivia gasped from his right. Startled, he turned to her. She had crept closer to him and risen to her knees. But where was Jeremy? Seeking his son, he spun wildly then grasped his wife’s arm and pointed.

  “Look at him, Liv.”

  Liam had thought his son would stay locked in his mother’s embrace, but he hadn’t. He had crawled to the little girl and her mother and was smiling and brushing dust from her skirts. Pride swelled in Liam’s chest. He crawled toward the three, Tom close behind at his heels.

  “Let’s abandon the cars,” he called over his shoulder. “We’re thirty miles or so from my cabin. We can just walk. It’ll take us all night and some of the morning too, but we’ll make it. I’ve got water and food in the truck. Another gun too.”

  He could sense Olivia’s surprised that he’d offered the cabin as sanctuary to this family of strangers. And maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, he mused. It was never a good idea to let anyone know the location of their home, but this was somehow different. Jeremy needed this. Liam could see that. He peered through the swirling clouds of dust that scratched at the back of his throat and watered his eyes. Jeremy didn’t have any friends, hadn’t met anyone his age in several years. He hadn’t yet started school. Hell, after all Liam had seen in the past few weeks, he wasn’t entirely sure he was going to let him go at all. But he’d clearly made a connection now, and it was one that Liam realized he wanted to nurture. With pride he watched as his son lifted his small hand to the side of the girl’s temple and wiped away blood that had seeped from her scalp. He could hear their exchange clearly despite the maelstrom around them.

  “You okay?” his son asked the little girl tentatively. She nodded and dropped her gaze, her bottom lip trembling. “You cut your head when the bad man threw you,” Jeremy added softly. Again she nodded and raised her eyes to his. He touched her hand. “You can come home with us. I have toys and hot chocolate. There’s a squirrel that plays behind our house. You ever seen a squirrel?”

  She shook her head and jumped as her mother moved behind her.

  “We don’t have any squirrels where we live, do we?” her mother urged. “Might be fun to see one. And we love hot chocolate.” The mother found her daughter’s hand and squeezed, and Liam immediately warmed to her smile. “It’ll be like an adventure,” she added. “What do you say Susan? Ready to go on an adventure with Jeremy?”

  “Susan,” Jeremy repeated with a whisper.

  With a small thumb he smeared the blood from her temple and smiled.

  “Your moles,” he pointed out. “They’re like a star on the side of your face.”

  “The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.”

  ― Paulo Coelho, Veronika Decides to Die

  Chapter 17

  October 24th, 2176

  Forth Worth, Texas

  1,329 Miles to San Diego

  It had been a week. A long, painful, and unproductive week. Given the limited resources at hand, they’d nursed Seth back to health as best they could, were thankfully able to keep the fever somewhat at bay. At times he would stir enough to drink tiny sips of the water they’d mixed with crushed aspirin and antibiotics, but Jeremy still worried about the threat of dehydration. All in all, they were lucky, he knew, that Seth had regained consciousness at all. And now that he had, he drifted somewhere between a groggy semi-wakefulness and a deep restless sleep.

  As if the fear of dehydration weren’t enough, Jeremy was also worried that the antibiotics were too weak to be effective at all. They were old, and though he really didn’t know how these things worked, he hoped their potency only decreased small increments with age. But what concerned him most was the fact that after Seth consumed this last dozen or so, they would be out of medicine altogether. The antibiotics would be gone, and nearly all of the aspirin too, and though both had been effective in managing his fever, Jeremy felt the intense knife of anxiety twist in his gut at the thought of exhausting the last of their supplies.

  Seth had suffered his fever in aspirin-laced waves. His clothing was stiff with sweat, his hair now matted, salty, and stuck to the sides of his face. They’d freshened his arms, legs, and chest with pieces of cloth soaked in water they’d warmed over a fire, but it wasn’t enough. He needed a real bath. He needed food. A soft bed to rest in. Hell, he needed a lot of things, but Jeremy refused to move him till he regained a bit of strength. He’d lost quite a bit of weight as well, Jeremy thought as his eyes traveled over the sharp planes of his body. Already slender before, he was now rather emaciated. When awake, they would force him to consume small amounts of brothy chicken soup from a can, islands of mushed crackers floating atop its surface, but what he needed most was quality protein, starchy carbohydrates, and something with vitamins. Jeremy sighed. A balance bar and a cup of lentils weren’t going to help this situation.

  Jeremy and Sam had tried to make good use of the times he was asleep. Those first few days they’d scoured the neighborhood and were lucky enough to find several items of use. The 7-Eleven proved mostly barren, but the U-Storage facility across the street had been fruitful enough. Jeremy had taken his crowbar to the small locks at the bottom of the metal doors, pried them open, and shouldered up the heavy doors amid creaking protests of rust. Methodically he and Sam moved from unit to unit, rifling though the long-abandoned possessions of the dead. There were no foodstuffs of course, but there was ample clothing and socks, and even a few knives and other tools.

  Further along Sorento Drive they found a neighborhood of low, ranch-style homes, and even a small motel where they found a forgotten cache of water bottles and a vending machine with a few packets of stale—yet edible—snacks. At this point Jeremy worried little about food and more about water. He had decided that as long as they were stuck here, he might as well erect a few rain catchers. Easily enough, he and Sam found supplies to make the devices and constructed several different kinds to see which would work best. Some they hung from the corners of buildings, the bowls stacked vertically on sturdy lengths of wire. Others were simpler, pieces of flat plastic suspended over a pot, edges tied to tree branches or thick shrubbery with a stone set carefully to add weight to the center. Jeremy had inspected the architecture of the 7-Eleven building itself and noticed rain gutters that ran the length of its roof. He and Sam had set bowls and pots at the mouths of these, and though the water would run dirty, it could be boiled, strained, and eventually made potable.

  These things had occupied much of their time, and for the most part Jeremy had welcomed the distraction and the general feelings of productiveness. But now a week had passed and he was beginning to succumb to familiar fears. These were the fears that crouched in the darker parts of his mind, the fears that forced him to make difficult decisions, the fears that often threatened to make of him a lesser man. He sat still, legs gathered to his chest, Sam silent at his side. Together they watched the gentle rain deepen puddles that dotted the road. It sluiced down the glass in thin rivulets, sent a cascade of worm-like smudges wriggling down the Exxon windows. It permeated the interior of the store with a pleasant earthy smell. Under any other circumstance, Jeremy would have described the afternoon as pleasant. Pleasant were it not for the words that had recently threatened to bubble from his lips more and more with the passing of each day. He fel
t them struggling on the tip of his tongue, afraid now that he’d bitten them back as many times as he was able.

  “What is it Carp?” Sam asked him pointedly. She leaned into him, playfully bumped her shoulder against his, posed the question he dreaded above all others. “Come on. You get a funny little line across your forehead when you think to hard. You’re gonna hurt yourself. What are you thinking?”

  He swallowed and clenched his fists to keep them from shaking.

  “Sam, I’m concerned.”

  “Concerned,” she said slowly. “Why? He hasn’t had a fever since last night. He’s finally broken it, and it hasn’t come back. He’s getting better, Carp.”

  “True,” Jeremy conceded, “He’s getting better perhaps, but he hasn’t sat up yet. Or spoken. Or eaten much of anything solid.”

  She turned her face back out toward the rain. “He’ll get better, Dad. Every day he’s getting better. You said so yourself last night. The red streaks beside the wound are disappearing. You said you couldn’t see them as much—that they were fainter. His body’s beating the infection. That’s what you said right?”

  He hugged his knees and leaned against her. “I did. But it doesn’t mean I’m not still concerned. Sam, I’m not worried that he won’t beat the infection. Not anymore. I think by the grace of God, he’s actually gotten through the worst of it. I’m more concerned now with how much time it’ll take him to come around. It’s been a week. I expected us to be back on the road by now. I’d even be satisfied with a small bit of progress. Even if he were strong enough to ride short distances. Even that would be better than standing still. Sam, we haven’t made any progress at all.”