Naomi smiled at her with sympathy and confidence. “Keep saying it.”
Calvin got into the car.
Naomi watched him, awaiting a response.
“Bullets in the side panel. Chipped paint. Fenders dented--”
“How about the engine?” Naomi interrupted.
“Unharmed,” Calvin said and let out a sigh of relief.
They stayed parked for a moment. Naomi squeezed his hands. He put the car back into Drive and headed to the Devil’s Pocket. None of them said anything. Questions swirled in Naomi’s mind. Who were the men responsible for the blast? If so, how coordinated was the attack? Was the government involved? Where was the army? Were the gunmen members of ISIS or some other foreign force? Perhaps they were just a hate group that used the time of chaos to cause more destruction. Naomi’s primary theory was that they were involved in the attack. The question was, who gave them the bomb, and what was the government doing about it? Would help come from overseas or would the nations of the world pick off the scraps of a broken U.S. like hungry crows? There was one question above the rest. It was a question asked by every parent. The one thing that transcended any disaster. The question was: where is my child?
They reached the Devil’s Pocket. The small neighborhood was nestled against the Schuylkill River. It consisted of drab row houses built up in an unappealing industrial landscape. The streets appeared to be empty. An old newspaper page rolled across the street like tumbleweed. The row house windows revealed nothing about the residents. Naomi waited until Sean had exited before she slipped out. She noticed Calvin stayed seated.
Naomi buried her hands in her pockets. The breeze brushed her hair across her right cheek. “Coming?”
Calvin shook his head. “Get Trinity. Then we go.”
Frowning, Naomi nodded.
Toting their heavy travel bags, Sean told Cathleen to get out. The two of them reached the door of one of the row houses. Naomi followed behind, watching her back. She expected a gunman to jump out and finish the fight. Sean hammered his fist on the door. The door opened to a six-foot-five bull of man. He wore a thick turtleneck. Greying stubble painted his face and the sides of his head. His eyes were moss green and calculating. He rested the ball of his hand on the butt of the wooden slugger.
“Inside,” Conner commanded with a thick Irish accent. He sniffed the wet air. “There are prowlers out here.”
Naomi followed him to the house. Wagging their tails, two pit bulls jumped on Sean. Their pink tongues lapped at face.
“Down, girls. Down.” Sean pushed them off and let the suitcases fall.
Cathleen looked around whimsically like she was in a dream.
“Good to see you, Cathleen,” said the other brother, Dean. Tall and naturally athletic, he had a big nose and crew cut. He leaned back on the dining table chair and fed torn paper into the small stone bowl turned fire pit. It cast an eerie orange glow across his gaunt, leathery face. His long shadow wavered as the fire changed shape. Knives, a hatchet, hammers, and other tools that could be used to damage another person were laid out on the table beside him.
Before Naomi could remark on it, a girl in a Catholic school uniform guided her wheelchair-bound grandfather into the room. Suddenly, Becca stopped, seeing her mother and father standing in front of her.
“Becca!” Dropping her bag, Cathleen rushed up and gave her a hug so tight it almost squeezed the life out of her.
“Mom,” Becca said breathlessly.
Cathleen wept and kissed her daughter a million times.
“Mom,” Becca struggled. “I can’t… breathe.”
Cathleen kissed her two more times before she comprehended the words. She released her. “Are you hurt? How do you feel? Have you seen any strange people following you?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” Becca said with the angst of a typical sixteen-year-old. She noticed Naomi. “Mrs. Baxter? What are you doing here?”
Naomi glanced around the room. She couldn’t keep her worry out of her voice. “I’m looking for Trinity.”
“Oh,” Becca said guiltily. “She’s not here.”
Dread fell on Naomi’s shoulders.
Becca shook her head. “I dropped her off at school, I swear.”
Naomi felt her blood pressure rise. “She’s not there.”
Becca looked as guilty as sin. “Okay, fine. The truth is some older guy picked her up. I think he was Gregory’s brother.”
“Who the hell is Gregory?” Naomi cut her off.
“A guy Trinity likes,” Becca explained. “Trinity knew I was taking a day off and decided she wanted to do it too. It’s too cold to be at school anyway, and she’d never missed class before, so it didn’t seem like a big deal.”
Naomi felt the world spinning.
“Do you have any idea where she went?” she asked.
“Maybe Gregory's house or the mall. I don’t know.”
Naomi reached her boiling point. “Where? What neighborhood? What mall?”
Becca shook her head. “I… I don’t you?”
Naomi scrutinized Becca. “And you’re sure the guy who picked her up is Gregory’s brother?”
Becca hesitated. She found her words and then lost them. “At least I think he was… Trinity wouldn’t just hitch a ride with a stranger. Right?”
Like a sledgehammer to the skull, it dawned on Naomi that her daughter might have been kidnapped.
5
4:17 P.M
Becca described the man as middle-aged, strong, and dressed in urban attire. She made note of his gold chain and dingy ride that she called an “old truck.”
“I know this is a lot, Mrs. Baxter, but Gregory is a good guy.” Becca said. “His big brother isn’t going to do anything to her.”
Naomi used everything in her might to keep herself from slapping the girl. “You let my daughter get into a car with a stranger to hang out with a boy that I’ve never met. Today of all days.”
Becca’s eyes watered. “I said I’m sorry.”
Sean approached her with a hand out in a non-threatening manner. “Hey hey hey, why don’t we calm down? Becca apologized.”
Naomi’s professional facade broke. She grinded her teeth so hard that her jaw hurt. She spoke through her teeth. “There are people dying outside. There are terrorists in our city. Apologies don’t matter. I want my daughter.”
Dean sat up in his chair. His voice was calm, almost emotionless. “Maybe we can find your daughter on the way out of the city.”
Conner nodded. “We’re going to make the march at nightfall.”
“Hold on,” Sean exclaimed. “You’re just going to leave?
Conner glared at him. “This city will become a warzone soon. Us and Dad are getting out before everything bottles up.”
The old man in the wheelchair nodded. He kept his blotchy, tattooed hand on a concealed pistol stuck into the front lip of his jeans. His voice had an airless, elderly quality. “I’ve seen the city when it was lawless. I’m not living through that malarkey again.”
A headache squeezed Naomi’s temples. “Becca. I’m on my knees here. Is there anything more you can tell me about this guy and Gregory?”
Becca thought on it.
“Anything at all,” Naomi pleaded.
Becca hesitated. “Gregory’s step-dad is a pharmacist. I don’t know his name.”
“Where does he work?” Naomi asked
“Uh, the Rite-Aid in Glenwood,” Becca elaborated. She was hiding something. Naomi started to piece together the relationship between the brother, Gregory, and her.
“Did Gregory ever supply to you?”
Becca looked at her innocently. Too innocently.
It didn’t matter what pills the girl was taking, truly. Naomi just wanted her daughter back. She had an empty feeling inside. What would happen if she couldn’t find Trinity? What if Trinity was killed in a car accident during the initial blast?
“What does the step-father look like?” Naomi asked.
“I’v
e never actually seen him.”
Naomi felt crushed. She was looking for a needle in stack of flaming hay. If he wasn’t at Rite-Aid, she didn’t know how she’d find Trinity. Without a word, she rushed out of the door. Across the street, people stood outside of their homes, eyeing Calvin’s car. He stayed in the warmth of the vehicle. The heater fogged up the windshield. Naomi got in.
“Took you long enough.” Calvin shifted the car into Drive as he glared at the rubberneckers. “Where’s Trinity?”
“Not here,” Naomi said as she put on her seatbelt.
Calvin ran his hand up his scalp.
“Some guy picked her up from school,” Naomi said. “Could be her boyfriend’s brother. Could be a complete stranger.”
Calvin went pale. “Boyfriend, when did she—And who is this stranger?”
More snow fell from the sky’s grey vault.
“I don’t know, Cal,” Naomi said with hostile frustration. “Just drive.”
“Where should we go?” Calvin asked.
Naomi gave him the skinny version regarding the pharmacist. They got onto a busy street and Naomi’s fears were realized.
Masked gunmen walked the sidewalk, shooting at anyone they saw. Looters used the chaos to smash windows. Women screamed from unseen places. Children scurried into alleys.
Calvin drove like a madman.
Knowing that car alarms didn’t work anymore, people with crowbars broke windshields and robbed glove boxes.
They reached a street where police formed a wall of riot shields and were launching tear gas against violent looters, who were turning back and running.
Calvin passed through, both him and Naomi rubbernecking as the screaming looters stampeded by them on both sides. With a thuump, a can of tear gas arced into the sky, silhouetted for a moment and then bounced up the hood of the Land Rover, getting lodged underneath the windshield wiper and the top of the hood.
Calvin cursed, quickly activating his wipers.
The wipers smacked the can, but it didn’t knock it loose.
“Oh, lord,” Naomi mumbled.
Hissing gas sprayed from the can, creating a cape of yellow across the window and around the sides of the vehicle.
Blinded by the yellow gas, Calvin raced forward, keeping the tear gas streaming away from the Rover instead of blowing inside. The looters screamed and dodged his vehicle. Almost hitting a twenty-something-year-old girl, Calvin ran down a stop sign and bumped up two wheels onto the sidewalk.
When the smoke cleared, they were racing headlong into the line of riot police.
Calvin froze.
Naomi swiftly grabbed the steering wheel and banked a hard right that nearly flipped the car. Calvin kept the direction through the smaller alley before getting spit out on another road. Fire danced between apartment buildings. Instead of being taken by the flame, a man jumped from the third-story window. He landed on the sidewalk, shattering both legs. His horrid screams rang throughout the air.
Calvin drove by Hahnemann Hospital, seeing fanatics dressed as jihadists crouching behind cover and shooting into the windows.
“There must have been hundreds of them,” Calvin thought aloud.
Naomi wondered if they were throughout the nation as well? It was hell on earth. The city was a powder keg that the masked gunmen had just set off. Naomi didn’t know how many there were, but it was more than fifty on Broad Street.
Navigating impossible roads, flying bricks, beggars, and gunfire, Naomi and Calvin reached the Rite-Aid as night fell.
People with bricks, bats, and whatever improvised bludgeoning object attacked the glass of the pharmacy. It chipped and splintered but did not break. They could see the pharmacist though the glass. He was trapped and pacing. They hoped he was the right guy.
Before being seen or heard, Calvin parked around back.
They decided it would be better to do this together. They stayed low, using trash cans and parked cars as cover as they moved around the building. The moment anyone learned they had car keys, they would be mugged, beaten, and probably killed. Step by step, they reached the back of the pharmacy. The door was locked, of course. They’d need to be creative.
Calvin pointed to the roof. “Vents.”
Naomi scoffed but had no better plan. They climbed on the dumpster. Calvin boosted Naomi to the roof. She stayed low and reached her arms down to help Calvin up. He counted back from three and jumped. She got his wrists and pulled him up, feeling like her arms were being pulled from their sockets. Gasping, she had to let go, reminding herself that she was not superwoman. After a ten-second breather, they tried again. Naomi heaved and fell back on her bottom. It was enough to get Calvin’s chest on the roof’s edge. With a vein bulging in his forehead, Calvin was able to pull himself up.
Below, a few stragglers walked past. They didn’t notice them.
Naomi and Calvin moved to the blocky, snake-like vent. Calvin pulled out the tools he’d stored in the vehicle and started removing the bolts. Two minutes later, they were peering into the dark pit. Naomi went first, unsure if Calvin could fit. As she moved into the tight space, the fear of being stuck terrified her. She kept sliding and slipped through the shaft. Her arms were almost trapped against her body. She had to slide in headfirst to make sure she had flexibility when the shaft changed directions. She held up the functional lantern. The light nearly blinded her as she crawled to the nearest vent gate. She got there, looking into the dark store. She couldn’t see the counter.
Doused with sweat and regretting wearing a heavy jacket, Naomi unscrewed the bolts around the grate. With a pinched expression, she pulled it out of the way to keep it from falling. She crawled over the hole, twisted around, and then let herself slide out.
It was not a smooth landing.
She hit the shelf and crashed through it, falling to her bottom along with headache and cough medicine.
“Ow,” she grimaced, feeling the bruise on her bottom and the back of her thigh. She forced herself up and glanced over to the counter. An active flashlight rested on the countertop. There was no one there. Naomi took one step forward.
Cha-chunk!
She recognized the sound. The hairs on her arms stood up.
Shotgun.
Naomi slowly raised her hands. “This isn’t what you think.”
“Shut up,” the man said.
Something banged in the shaft up above.
The stranger craned his head as the vent snapped from its hinges. Calvin crashed down on him like a sack of bricks. They were both floored. The man lost his hold on the shotgun. Wasting no time, Naomi grabbed it by the barrel and slid it behind her.
Calvin got off the man. The pharmacist scurried backwards. His spine hit a shelf. Terrified, he turned his head between Naomi and Calvin. Sweat droplets peppered his forehead. He had a round face with chubby cheeks and white hair. He dressed in a pharmacist's coat. On the tag, it read Dr. Watts.
“We’re not here for the reason you think,” Naomi explained.
Calvin explained further. “We need you to help our daughter.”
“W-what?” Watts stammered. “I can’t be giving out medication to everyone.”
Outside, people continued banging on the glass.
“You have a step-son named Gregory, right?” Naomi asked.
Watts looked horrified.
“His brother picked up my daughter this morning from school. Apparently, her and Gregory are a thing. I need to know where they live so I can take my daughter home.”
“I know you,” the man said suddenly. “You’re Dr. Baxter. I’ve read your book about the human conditions. I’ve watched your interviews.”
“Then you know what I’m about,” Naomi said.
“If you think I’m going out there, you are crazy,” Watts said.
Naomi locked eyes with him. “Then tell me the address.”
“And let you attack my kids? I think not.”
“What if I gave you a ride there?” Naomi asked.
The m
an laughed. “You don’t have a car. No one has a car.”
Calvin looked at him seriously. “We do, and it’s EMP proof. We’ll take you to your house. All we want is our daughter. What do you say? Deal?”
The pharmacist shook hands. “Can I have my gun back?”
Naomi picked it up. “I’ll hold on to it until we get there.”
“You’re making me put a lot of trust in strangers,” the man said suspiciously.
“We’re putting a lot of trust in you.”
“Touché. The best way out is the back. Let me show you the way, but first, I need to grab a few things.”
Calvin and Naomi watched him pack up bag after bag of meds, making sure they didn’t fall into the wrong hands. Or so he could sell them when the going gets hot. Whatever the outcome, Naomi was fine with just getting her family together.
Bracing themselves, they got ready to go out the back door. Counting down, Calvin pulled it open. They ran for the Rover. Seeing them, the swarm of people charged at the car like a bunch of angry fan girls.
Calvin quickly unlocked the door and jumped inside. Watts followed, climbing into the back.
Naomi twisted back, seeing the swarming crowd. Making her heart stone, she turned the shotgun barrel to the sky and squeezed the trigger. The stock punched her shoulder as a jet of fire burst from the barrel. The blast sent the people scrambling. They crashed into one another, knocking shoulders and tumbling over each other. Women screamed. Man cursed. Naomi cocked the shotgun and climbed into the passenger seat. Calvin hit the gas and drove away. The people started to chase after them. A brick slammed onto the top of the Land Rover and rolled off the side.
Naomi flipped on the weapon’s safety and rested it between her feet, keeping the barrel aimed up and far from her face. Her heart raced and her hands trembled. “I’ve never shot a gun that close to someone before.”
His eyes scanning the road, Calvin rested a hand on her knee. “You did the right thing.”
Like Death’s shadow, night shrouded Philly. Without any artificial light, the darkness had never been so powerful. The heavy clouds hid the stars. Snowflakes swirled in the air. Like signals to some faraway camp, buildings burned high and mighty. Newspapers from a printing press danced in the air like autumn leaves. They brushed across the streets, getting snagged on light posts, power lines, and cars. Calvin strayed from the main roads. Naomi rested her head against the window. Beyond her reflection, she saw a row of twenty parallel-parked cars with their driver-side window smashed.
Aftermath (Book 0): Aftermath Page 5