Apokalypsis | Book 5 | Apokalypsis 5

by Morris, Kate

  “Wish we all still had cell phones that worked,” Jane complained. “This lack of communication is stressful.”

  “Speaking of,” Tristan said. “Run back out to Jeff’s place. One of the guys I shot had a radio. I heard him using it. Look around. I bet they all had radios on them.”

  “You mean like walkie-talkies?” Jane asked.

  “Yeah, like that. Might be hard to find them in the snow but search high and low. If they were using comms, we need them.”

  “They sure won’t be needing them anymore,” Roman said.

  “Roman!” Jane scolded with an angry little face.

  Tristan and Roman chuckled until she gave them both the look, to which they settled down. Wren didn’t care one way or the other about scumbags like those people. As a matter of fact, she was glad they were dead. They reminded her of that asshole Principal Russo. She hoped he was dead out there somewhere from the bullet wounds she’d given him.

  “Sorry, I just don’t care,” Roman apologized.

  “Neither do I, but I don’t think we should mock them,” Jane said. “They were horrible men, and they got what they deserved, but it seems wrong to be arrogant about this victory. We might not always be so lucky.”

  “She’s right,” Tristan agreed. “Never assume you’ll have the upper hand. And, hey, those men told me a lot. When you guys get back later, come to the house. I have a lot to tell everyone. Ready? I’ll drive you home, Jane.”

  Jane nodded but said, “I think I should drive you home.”

  “That’ll work. I’m sure your father’s worried, and I know my girl will be.”

  He smiled fondly thinking about Avery. Their meeting adjourned, and Wren scraped everyone’s leftovers, which wasn’t much and fed the dog. They still had quite a bit of dog food, but she knew that wouldn’t last forever. Dixie inhaled it in five seconds flat.

  She left with Elijah and Roman a few minutes later after he hugged Jane goodbye. She rode shotgun while Elijah drove the new SUV since it had a full tank of gas, was 4x4 capable, and had a lot of room in the back if they needed it.

  “Tristan said this wreck is just outside of town on the state route or like a freeway or something,” Wren said.

  “There’s no freeways down here,” Roman corrected her. “It’s just either back country roads or the paved county roads. The two state routes run crossways through town. I think I know where he meant. He told me where to go.”

  “Maybe you should be sitting up here then,” she said of the front seat.

  “Nah, you seem to be able to handle the whole shooting from a moving car kind of stuff,” he teased.

  “Hm,” she said and stared out the window at the white, sparkly landscape around them as Elijah and Roman discussed football. She just looked around at their surroundings instead because she didn’t understand American football all that well and never cared to learn. Elijah took them toward town on a road that had very few track marks by which to follow and not drive off into a ditch. No traffic was out at this early hour. They rarely saw a car anyway. None of the driveways were plowed to allow vehicle access through the snow, mail was falling out of many of the mailboxes along the road, and very few homes had smoke coming from their chimneys. If people were riding this out, not a lot of them were doing so around here.

  “Up ahead,” Elijah said. “I think that’s it.”

  Her head snapped up, and Wren saw the wreckage near their intersection as he slowed to a stop.

  “Nobody’s around,” Roman observed, sitting forward.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Elijah said.

  The day was overcast, but she hoped it didn’t mean snow was coming again. How the hell much snow did this state get? She missed home. However, at least it wasn’t too dark since the sun was trying to peek through the heavy cloud cover. Those things would come out now in a dense snowfall, they’d learned.

  “Nothing my way,” she told them, peering out her window down the road.

  “Ready?” Elijah asked and pulled out onto the road and slowly, carefully approached the wreckage, parking as close as he could get.

  “This could be a bad spot,” Roman said from the backseat. “Woods on either side of the road.”

  “Two can check for stuff while one watches,” she added.

  They agreed, and everyone got out. The snow was drifted knee-deep in areas closest to the damaged vehicles, so she tried to skirt around it lest her feet get soaked even with her boots on.

  The first vehicle was a pickup truck, but it was clearly damaged beyond saving.

  “Jesus!” Elijah whispered in shock at the dead man behind the wheel. She only glanced and then quickly looked away.

  Three other cars also had dead people in them, some women and children. Two others looked abandoned because there weren’t bodies in them, but there were tracks in the snow leading away. She hoped they got somewhere safe before the sun went down. Some of the footprints looked small, which bothered her.

  The semi-trucks Tristan told them about were terribly damaged, one having gone over the embankment partially. It looked to be holding onto the edge of the road in a precarious manner. The other was in the middle of the road, the trailer spun out in a severe jackknifed position parallel with the cab and smashed into two of the smaller cars. Everywhere she looked was destruction or death. What caused the accident was unclear, but if she were to guess, it was probably due to the bad road conditions.

  “Let’s try this one first,” Elijah suggested, going to the semi that was still fully on the road but sitting mostly in the other lane of oncoming traffic.

  They went around to the driver’s door, but it was pinned shut by a dump truck on its passenger side she hadn’t seen before. The window of the semi was rolled down, which led her to believe the driver escaped that way and fled or called for help to be picked up. Roman climbed the long hood of the dump truck and peeked into the cab. He gave a thumbs-up signal and slid back down to the ground. Then they trudged through the snow to the back of the semi’s trailer, where the double doors were still closed on the long white box. It was unmarked, all white like the cab, and had no company name on it, which was strange. Roman knocked on it twice.

  “Why’d you do that?” Elijah asked.

  He shrugged. “In case any of those things is in there.”

  Wren shot him a skeptical look. “Why would there be? The doors are shut.”

  “Don’t know. Maybe they’ll haul them to the sick quarantine camps this way. You know, like the train wreck you guys encountered?”

  She nodded. That seemed cruel to stick them in box trucks and train cars, but in the government’s defense, the infected did want to kill people with their bare hands.

  “Elijah, you should keep watch since you’re still nursing some serious injuries,” she said when Roman worked the latches of the trailer’s doors and began prying them open on squeaky hinges.

  “Okay, I can do that,” he agreed and turned his back to them.

  “Whoa,” Roman remarked and then whistled. “What is all this?”

  She looked into the trailer, which was crammed to the ceiling full of crates and then boxes on top of those. “Looks like food or something.”

  Roman climbed up in and helped her up. She was reluctant to accept it until her boot slipped on the snow-covered slick, metal frame, which changed her mind and silenced her inner feminist.

  He turned on his flashlight. “Yeah, it is. This is pasta. Dang, this is like a whole skid of it. I bet they were taking all this to a camp somewhere.”

  “I think there’s one not far from here,” Elijah said behind them. “Maybe thirty or forty miles.”

  “These boxes are labeled ‘rice.’ I wonder if it’s all food in here. This could help us out a lot.”

  “No doubt,” Roman said. “Hey, if we take the vehicle around the block somewhere, we could come at it from this way and back right up since we can’t get past this congestion. Right here is an open space, maybe the only one. If not, we’re go
nna have to carry everything in armloads quite a distance.”

  “Yeah, but none of us know where to go to circumvent this wreck. We’re not from around here, either,” she said. “Plus, I don’t think we should be here too long. Anyone could come this way.”

  “I think I could find it,” Elijah interjected. “We used to come to town sometimes with my uncle. It’s not that big of a town. I think if I head into town and take the first left, it’ll go out into the country again and come to a road that runs parallel to this one. Then all I gotta do is circle around. About a mile maybe.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked and got a nod.

  “Yeah, pretty sure. I could be back here in like five minutes or so.”

  “Okay, man. I think that’ll be easier. I’m gonna try Tristan’s number. If we could get someone to bring a truck or even two, this would go a lot faster. I didn’t think we’d find this much.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Elijah said. “There used to be a trailer sales place in town. If there’s a hitch on the SUV, we could get a trailer and haul it all that way. It would save others from having to come into town.”

  “Yeah, well, what are you going to do? Steal one?”

  He paused, then shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Elijah,” she scolded. “What if the cops come?”

  “I don’t think the cops are coming,” Roman said. “I mean, this place isn’t much more than a ghost town. It’s even worse than where we all just came from. I don’t know where everyone’s going, but they’re gone. We’ve been here a while now, and it’s rare that we see anyone. Had some trouble with looters at the small hospital, and my friends had trouble, obviously, but it’s broad daylight, and nobody’s around. I think it’s safe.”

  “Maybe the camps,” Elijah added. “Maybe they’re all fleeing to the camps.”

  “Okay, fine. But we gotta hurry,” she urged and took Roman’s help back down. He was big, tall, but not as muscular as Elijah or bulky. He was also handsome, but also not as much as Elijah. She shook her head and helped shut the doors and lock them again.

  They drove into town, almost got stuck once when the vehicle was pulled into tire tracks in the deep snow and found the trailer place easily. There wasn’t much to choose from, though.

  “Looks like the place was already robbed,” Roman said.

  “Maybe or maybe people bought them to pack their crap and flee.”

  “True. Or bartered,” Wren added and got out with the guys.

  Roman went around back of the SUV, then came back to them. “It has a hitch on it already. I think it needs the kind of trailer that doesn’t mount real low to the ground. My dad used to haul our boat, so I’m pretty sure it’s the same kind.”

  “Got it. How ‘bout that one?” Elijah pointed at some trailers that looked like there were for hauling machinery.

  “Yeah, I think so,” Roman said. “Back it up over here?”

  The business was mostly a big open gravel lot, which was covered in snow and also not plowed. There were three trailers that were flat like the one they were looking at and two more for hauling livestock. A small office building sat vacant with broken windows, and a house trailer, much like the one she lived in most recently with Jamie, sat behind the office. Wren watched both with wary eyes.

  The boys got the trailer hooked up after much struggle and a bit of swearing, and they were off again. This time, Elijah took the other route to the wreck and came in from the rear where he backed the trailer, also with a lot of frustration and swearing, up to the semi’s tail end. Then they were finally ready to load everything.

  “I’m gonna look up front in the driver’s cab,” Roman said. “We’re gonna need some rope or something to tie it all down.”

  “Got it,” Elijah said. “Wren, start handing me down things.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Besides, I’ve got a good nurse who can look after me later.”

  She offered a wry smile because her guilt got the best of her. She was not a good nurse, hadn’t really looked after him at all. She’d left that to his brother. There was something about Elijah’s optimism and hope that made her pull back, pull away from him emotionally, and she hadn’t wanted to treat his wounds because they were a reminder of what Jamie had also endured and not survived.

  Roman returned with straps that had brass ratchets on the end. Jamie had used those a few times, but they always confused her how they worked.

  Together, they cleared out a lot of the trailer until they had their own trailer piled high, maybe too high. The boys reassured her it would be fine, but Wren had her doubts. There were so many wholesale style bulk boxes of grains and cereals, rice, and pre-packaged foods that it seemed like too much weight for the eighteen-foot trailer. There were even crates full of apples, carrots, and potatoes, which she hadn’t seen in a while, at least not fresh ones. They also packed the back of the SUV full, laying down the rear seats to do so.

  “There’s a lot more, and this is only the one truck,” Roman observed the skids of food, water jugs, and blankets near the front of the box trailer. He closed the trailer doors and flipped the locking arm over. It made a lot of noise in her opinion, which caused her to give him a sneer. Roman grimaced, “Sorry.”

  “We should take this home and come back for more,” Wren said as she and Roman walked toward the back of the trailer again.

  “Wait,” Elijah said, his hand shooting up. “Shh, did you guys hear that?”

  “Hear what?” Roman asked in a much quieter tone.

  Then she heard it, too.

  “Gunfire,” she announced and already began moving toward the front seat, slipping in the snow in her haste and almost going down. Roman grabbed her arm to assist. “Get us out of here, Elijah.”

  He had it fired up before Roman even got his door closed. They were just pulling away when Wren spotted two trucks coming toward them down a long hill. They were maybe a half mile away, but they were coming fast, too fast.

  “Shit,” Roman blurted from the backseat.

  “I’m gonna put it in 4x4,” Elijah said and hit a button near the steering wheel.

  “We can’t back up. We gotta go forward.”

  “Wren,” Elijah said, and she immediately knew what he meant as he began to accelerate, the big vehicle resisting at first, either from the weight of the trailer or the snow.

  She rolled down her window and leaned toward it with her rifle in case they got into trouble. One of the trucks coming toward them was bright red and had a light on top of it like it belonged to a fire department. The light was flashing, and she could hear a siren as it drew closer. They must’ve seen the wreckage before they saw their SUV coming at them because the driver hit the brakes. The truck behind it slammed into the red truck with the lights because it was following too closely. Then around the bend came a police car with the lights and sirens also going.

  “Shit,” Elijah echoed Roman’s sentiment and slowed down slightly. “We’re busted.”

  The trucks were sliding toward them now, both careening and fishtailing. Elijah swerved hard as they slid too closely, still out of control. They were almost past them when the driver in the rear truck jerked the wheel too hard and sent the red pickup into a steep ditch. Then it veered quickly back and into their lane before Elijah could get past them. They were struck in the right front quarter panel of their SUV and were thrown slightly to the left. Wren wasn’t sure if they did it on purpose or not. The police car came sliding to a stop in front of them at an angle.

  “Are you okay?” Elijah immediately shouted at her.

  “Yes, yeah,” she exclaimed. “Elijah, get us outta’ here! I don’t like this.”

  “Me, neither, man,” Roman said with nerves. “Get us out of here. I don’t think these dudes are real first responders.”

  “I’m trying,” he shouted and put it in reverse.

  Two men jumped out of the pickup truck and stalked toward them. Theirs seemed more damaged, the side
of their cab caved in pretty badly.

  “Elijah,” Roman warned through his teeth.

  She could see Roman out of the corner of her eye as he slid across the backseat and rolled down his window, too. At the same time, they both pointed their rifles at the men.

  “Get the hell back!” Roman shouted loudly and with persuasive authority. He could get really loud when he wanted to. He had a deep voice, so it was definitely an intimidating threat and tone.

  “Hey, hey, hey!” the tall man said in a panic and took a step back as he drew a pistol.

  Wren didn’t even hesitate. She fired a round, hitting him in the neck. He tried to scream but fell backward and landed on his side, holding his neck, blood spurting between his fingers onto the white snow. His legs scissored, which made him look as if he were trying to run. The frantic motion, which was probably because he couldn’t breathe and was definitely panicking, was creating a bloody, awkward snow angel.

  “Don’t do it, man,” Roman warned, but the other shorter one ran back to his truck and grabbed a shotgun.

  Wren aimed in through his open window and fired again. The round struck him in the shoulder. She opened her door, or tried to, which squealed loudly, telling her something wasn’t quite right with it. It wouldn’t open more than a few inches.

  “I got it,” Roman said and exited quickly. “Cover me.”

  “Got you,” she promised and aimed in on the man who was now hiding.

  Someone from the police car got on a loudspeaker and began issuing orders.

  “Stand down!”

  Roman backed up toward the SUV again and got in.

  “What the hell?” Elijah asked rhetorically.

  “Back up, man,” Roman said.

  “Where to? We’re blocked,” Elijah answered with a little bit of panic in his voice.

  “Step out of the vehicles!” the cops shouted.

  She looked at Elijah, “We can’t. Elijah, you know. We can’t.”

  “Know what?” Roman asked.

  “Nothing,” Elijah told him. “We just can’t. I don’t trust anyone. Not even these cops.”

  “Yeah, I get that,” Roman agreed.