Light of Dawn

by Vannetta Chapman

  Carter decided it didn’t matter.

  What mattered was they now had the Dodge uncovered, and it too still ran. It had taken a few harder hits than the Mustang. The back windshield was spidered, and the tailgate was bashed in so that it no longer opened. But the engine was good.

  He glanced up at the sky, surprised to see the sun was past its zenith. He guessed it was tending toward two in the afternoon. No one wanted to spend another night in this same spot. It seemed unnecessarily risky. They needed to free the Hummer, which they could now see.

  Unfortunately, it was under a pile of trees that they were having no luck budging.

  They each had a small hatchet in their packs. Working in pairs, they hacked away at the giant trunks. Carter’s palms turned red, then sore as blisters formed, and finally those burst open and he couldn’t feel anything at all. Max caught him staring down at the open blisters, which oozed water mixed with blood.

  Max walked over to his pack, opened it, and pulled out a roll of gauze. “Clean them with water and wrap them,” he said, tossing the gauze to him.

  “Shouldn’t we save it for…for something worse?”

  “If your hands become infected, you’ll have to take antibiotics, and last I checked, Gabe only has a limited supply of medication.”

  “Why aren’t yours blistered?”

  “Because I’m old, and my skin is like leather.”

  They both laughed at that. Max had been a lawyer in the pre-flare world. When they’d moved to High Fields, he’d joked about ruining his baby-soft palms. But they’d all become tougher. They weren’t the people they’d been before the flare. It aggravated Carter all the more that his palms had betrayed him. He wanted to be tougher. Then again, he didn’t want to be old like Max. His forties sounded like a lifetime away, but he wouldn’t have minded leathery skin.

  He poured water from his bottle over the open blisters, dried them with a clean T-shirt from his pack, and wrapped his hands. Finished, he offered the gauze to Lanh, who had blisters that hadn’t burst but would soon, and then they went back to work.

  By the time the sun had reached the tops of the trees to the west, the front of the Hummer was free.

  “It’s going to take another day to remove the rest of it,” Max said.

  “Unless we drive it out.” Patrick chugged the rest of his water, swiped his hand across his mouth, and asked Gabe, “Keys in it?”

  “Should be.”

  “Big engine, right?”

  “Much bigger than what you have in that Mustang. Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

  “I am.”

  “Not sure it will work.”

  “We’ll never know until we try.”

  Gabe nodded his assent.

  Carter’s mom and Bianca walked back into camp as Patrick shimmied his way through the tree branches obstructing the driver’s door. They’d agreed to meet up at four to make a decision about whether to stay another night or walk out. Of course, now they had the option of leaving in the Mustang and Dodge, but no one wanted to leave the Hummer.

  “Not this way,” Patrick said from inside the tangle of limbs. “Too tight. Can’t open the door at all.”

  Bianca stood with her hands on her hips. “You’re too big,” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter how big I am. The door is blocked.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Honey, I know you want to help, but…”

  Bianca turned to Gabe. “Keys are in it?”

  “They are.”

  Patrick was trying to scramble back out from under the limbs. He managed to get free at the same time that Bianca handed Shelby her pack, dropped to her belly, and crawled through the mud to the passenger door.

  “What’s she doing?”

  “Rescuing us,” Carter said with a grin.

  His mom looked miffed that she hadn’t thought of ducking in there, but then Bianca was shorter. If anyone could get through, she could.

  “I’m in,” she called out. They were all standing around the front passenger side of the Hummer. “I’m going to need a hatchet.”

  “Not happening.” Patrick was shaking his head. His amused look had morphed to frustration.

  Max stepped closer and peered through the branches. “If you cut the wrong thing, the rest could come down on your head. Think of it like a Jenga game.”

  “But the stakes are higher.” Shelby stepped back, moving right and then left, obviously trying for a better view. With a shrug, she said, “Can you open the door at all?”

  “An inch maybe.”

  “All right. Can you see what’s blocking you?”

  “Yeah, but I can’t move it.”

  “Try giving it a shake.”

  The end of a branch moved, slightly, barely.

  “Give it all you’ve got, sweetheart.” Patrick grabbed hold of the end of the branch.

  This time when Bianca shook it, they were sure.

  After that things moved quickly.

  Bianca would shake a branch, they would chop it from the outside, and then she’d move to the next.

  Carter thought it was like hacking a cave through a mythical forest.

  The groan of metal against timber split the quiet of the afternoon.

  “I’m in,” Bianca hollered.

  They all held their breath as she scooted over to the driver’s side and started the massive engine.

  FORTY

  Max didn’t like what was happening. He understood that the Hummer was built to handle extreme conditions, but this was going above and beyond the manufacturer’s recommendations. What was the weight of the trees crisscrossing the top of the vehicle? How did they know the entire pile wouldn’t crush in the top of the Hummer when the load shifted? Why were they taking such a risk?

  He’d have preferred approaching the problem slowly, making calculated moves, being cautious.

  But, of course, there were risks associated with that as well.

  Spending another night in the same spot could be dangerous.

  Twice in the last few hours, Shelby had spotted people in a vehicle, moving in and out of the path left by the twin tornadoes, searching through the debris for items that they crammed into the back of their old pickup. Two people went through the wreckage. Another stood guard holding what looked like a semiautomatic military-style weapon. Shelby had only been able to see them through binoculars, and they were moving slowly. Still, there was little doubt that they represented a threat.

  Someone would find them soon. The only question was whether it was someone who would help them or someone who would try to take what little they had.

  All of that flashed through his mind in an instant—the same instant that Bianca gunned the engine of the Hummer before slipping it into drive.

  “Get back,” Gabe said.

  They all hopped out of the path as Bianca floored the accelerator.

  The Hummer shot out of the debris like an arrow from a bow.

  Bianca slammed on the brakes as the trees collapsed—groaning, crashing, breaking, popping, and in the end settling into a heap where she had been.

  As she exited the Hummer, everyone began talking at once, but it was Gabe who gave a loud whistle and quieted everyone down. “Listen.”

  No one spoke, Max hardly dared to breathe, and then he heard it—the rumble of an engine followed immediately by the rat-a-tat-tat of a semiautomatic rifle. Someone was coming all right, and it didn’t sound like the good guys.

  “We need to go now,” Gabe said.

  “Which direction…”

  “South. They’re south of here.” Gabe ran to the driver’s side of the Hummer. “We need to head north.”

  Everyone scattered, grabbing their packs. Max ran to the Dodge, Shelby right behind him. Lanh and Carter passed in front of them, headed toward the Hummer.

  “Was Lanh carrying a skateboard?” Shelby asked.

  But there was no time to answer, no time to question anyone. There wasn’t even time to argue t
he merits of staying and fighting versus fleeing. They were tired, their energy levels depleted from both the close call with the tornado and the day of arduous work on the debris pile. What they needed was a safe place to rest, a shelter or reprieve of some kind.

  Glancing to his right, Max saw Bianca and Patrick slide into the Mustang. Patrick jammed the transmission into first gear and shot around the front of the other two vehicles and out of the drive, turning left, turning north. Max followed, and Gabe brought up the rear.

  “I can’t see anything out of my rearview.” The back window’s spidered glass created a prism of color. He split his attention between watching Patrick through the front windshield and monitoring what he could see out of his side-view mirror, which was mostly just the Hummer.

  Shelby craned her neck, trying to see more out of her side-view mirror. Finally, she rolled the window down and hung out so that she could better see what was behind them.

  Max reached over, grabbed her by the waistband of her pants, and hauled her back into the car.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “They’re still back there.” She buckled her seat belt. “It looks like they’re gaining on the Hummer.”

  He knew what she was thinking without having to look at her. He heard the tremble in her voice. Felt the tension in the way she clutched the seat belt.

  “We’ll make it,” he said, pushing the gas pedal until it hit the floor.

  Patrick must have seen the same thing they had. The Mustang leapt forward, easily outpacing the Dodge.

  Which meant they were holding up the Hummer. If he got out of the way, the Hummer could race past them.

  He never had a chance to implement the plan forming in his mind.

  He looked in his side-view mirror at the same instant that Shelby looked in hers.

  “What are they thinking?” he muttered.

  “No. No, no, no, no…”

  “Hang on.” He slammed on his brakes, throwing the Dodge into a spin. Wrestling with the wheel, he tried to work with the deceleration, tapping the brakes, hoping and praying that they would stop facing the threat that Lanh and Carter were about to shoot at.

  The Hummer shot past them at the same moment that both Lanh and Carter fired on their aggressor. The Dodge slammed to a squealing, smoking stop in the oncoming lane, facing back the direction they’d just come.

  Shelby leaned out the window, her rifle raised. She took aim at the windshield and fired four consecutive shots. Max jumped out of the vehicle, the door shielding him, and fired six more rounds.

  The Chevy truck that had been pursuing them swerved crazily, barely clinging to the road as it choked to a halt, front tires shot out, engine billowing smoke.

  He saw a stain of red on the front windshield.

  The doors didn’t open.

  “Should we go and—”

  “No, we shouldn’t.” He glanced over at her, saw indecision and doubt and regret flicker across her face. “They were willing to kill us with no provocation, and whoever was in there didn’t survive because of the choices they made.”

  She nodded once, climbed back into the Dodge, her rifle upright between her knees, her hands still clasping the barrel.

  He put his own rifle in the backseat where he could easily reach it, prayed that he hadn’t thrown a rod or a gasket or any number of things he couldn’t name. Prayed that the vehicle would start and that they would find a place to rest. Sweat ran down his back, and when he looked at his hands on the steering wheel, he saw they were shaking.

  That was okay.

  In all likelihood, they had just killed someone, possibly several people.

  Self-defense? Absolutely. But it still wasn’t easy. He hoped it never would be.

  Starting the Dodge, he turned them once again so that they were facing north.

  FORTY-ONE

  Shelby wanted to put her head down and fall asleep. Had she ever been so exhausted? Her arms felt as though they were weighted to her sides. She blinked her eyes constantly, resisting the urge to close them for a few seconds. Her stomach pitched and rolled, and she tried to remember the last time they’d eaten. But she didn’t want food. She wanted sleep.

  Max reached over and squeezed her hand. Working his way up, he massaged her arm, then her shoulder, then her neck.

  “Eyes on the road, cowboy.”

  “Yeah, but I woke you up. Right?”

  “Thanks for that.”

  “You wanted to be awake, though. I saw you trying to hold your eyelids open with your fingertips.”

  “I was stretching.”

  “Your eyelids?”

  She peered out into the gathering dusk. They hadn’t stopped since shooting out the truck. She kept replaying what had happened in her mind. The horror of seeing Carter lean out the window with his rifle, the truck spinning like a Tilt-A-Whirl at the county fair, Max slamming on the brakes. She hadn’t realized she’d reached for her rifle until she was raising it and sighting in the truck’s engine block.

  Had she killed someone? Or had Max? And what difference did it make? They were literally fighting for their lives. What else could they have done?

  “Where are we?”

  “Middle of nowhere.” Max flexed his fingers on the steering wheel and yawned.

  Was he as tired as she was? When would they rest? How much had they even slept the night before?

  For the last half hour they’d been traveling on a county road that was barely two lanes. Shelby couldn’t even remember which direction they were going. North? Or farther east?

  “There has to be a way across the Red River.”

  “Or through it.”

  “Not funny. This Dodge doesn’t float.”

  “Indeed it doesn’t.”

  “What if we can’t get across? What if every road is blocked?”

  She squared herself in the corner between her seat and the door and stared across at Max. It was nearly dark. They were traveling with their low beams on, afraid to go with no headlights, afraid of slamming into an abandoned vehicle. She could barely make out his expression in the glow from the dashboard lights. Watching Max, she thought of him kneeling in the mud, staring at where the house they’d sheltered in had once been. She’d seen fear and relief and joy on his face all at once, and she understood that. She understood how a person could feel so many conflicting emotions at the same time.

  “What if we can’t get across?” she asked again.

  “We’ll go around.”

  “Around?”

  “We’ll…skirt it. West and then north.”

  “It’ll add days, maybe weeks to our trip.”

  “We knew this wouldn’t be easy.”

  “And it hasn’t been.” She finger-combed her hair down, wondering when she’d last showered, when she’d even looked in a mirror. It didn’t matter, though. All that mattered was finding out if anyone was out there—anyone who could and would help them.

  “He’s slowing down.”

  Gabe had taken the lead more than an hour ago. They took turns, like a flock of geese, hoping that the person in the lead could remain a little more vigilant than the other two.

  The distance between the three vehicles shrank as Gabe decelerated and tapped his brakes.

  They had radios. They could communicate through them, but doing so exposed them to the risk of someone else chancing upon their frequency. The radio in Shelby’s lap remained silent.

  Their county road had broadened, and they were now passing through a small town. It was bigger than Langford Cove, but not by much. They passed a church, an elementary school, a library.

  “I wonder if there are still any books in there.”

  “Want to stop and check some out?”

  “I want sleep.”

  “We’ll find some somewhere.”

  He shot her his I’ve got this smile, and she didn’t know whether she wanted to sock him or hug him. His confidence could be so irritating and so comforting. She did need sleep. Her emotions were all
over the place.

  Gabe turned left. Shelby understood why when she saw the road sign that simply read Grace Chapel. The road quickly turned to gravel and then dirt. All around them were fields, unplanted, wildflowers reclaiming the soil. And then she saw it—a small white chapel a hundred yards off the road, surrounded on all four sides by fields, with a narrow dirt lane leading to the front steps.

  “A place of refuge,” Max murmured.

  There was no concrete parking area or marquee sign.

  They pulled the vehicles side by side, cut off the lights, and killed the engines. A heavenly quiet permeated the evening. Slowly, Shelby became aware of a cardinal’s song, the music of crickets, the croak of a frog. Their entire group stepped out of their vehicles, quietly closing the doors and meeting in front of the humble clapboard building.

  Shelby leaned her head back, stared up at the steeple, and wondered if she might be dreaming this. The pinpricks of a million stars adorned the heavens. A three-quarter moon had begun to rise in the east.

  “We’ll check the back,” Patrick said. Bianca and Lanh followed at his side.

  “Max, stay with the cars until we’ve cleared the area.” Gabe stepped toward the building. Shelby and Carter were practically on his heels.

  Inside the church was unscathed.

  They walked through the foyer and into the rectangular sanctuary, which had beveled glass windows placed evenly down each side.

  No one was here.

  Gabe stepped out the door and motioned Max inside.

  Patrick and crew entered from the back. “Doors were unlocked,” he said.

  “Looks like folks stepped away for a moment, like they expected to return the next Sunday.” Shelby ran her hand across the back of an old wooden pew. They extended up both sides of the room with an aisle down the middle. The church might have held fifty if they packed in tight. In the beam of Gabe’s flashlight, she could make out an altar, piano, lectern, and choir loft. Behind the choir loft was a baptismal and above that, rising to the height of the ceiling, a plain wooden cross.

  It only took seconds to clear the room. There was no place for anyone to hide.