Solar Storm: Season 1 [Aftermath Episodes 1-5]

by Richardson, Marcus

  Frustration grew in Jay's chest. He struggled to his feet, garnering more looks from drivers and passengers, but still no one stopped. A school bus rounded the corner, the dull yellow paint flecked with rust and bits of snow, spewing black exhaust as it maintained its place in the convoy.

  Several of the windows on his side of the bus were down and people inside stared out with dead, hollow eyes. One small hand waved.

  Jay found a stout branch on the side of the road and used it as cane to prop himself as he got to his feet. "Hey, stop!" he cried.

  He stood there by the side of the road staring in open-mouthed wonder as the stream of cars continued unabated. "Hey! Help! Somebody stop!" he called out, alternately waving his hand or the stick. No one slowed down.

  "What the fuck is going on?" he shouted. He took two halting steps into the southbound lane and waved again. One car swerved slightly to the right to give him a wide berth, but no one slowed

  "What's wrong with you people?" he hollered. "Why won't anyone stop?"

  "Get the hell out of the road, asshole!" a gruff voice yelled as a beat-up Jeep Wagoneer rumbled by.

  Jay dropped his arms as the man flipped him off to the laughter of those inside the vehicle. He turned his head back and forth, watching cars appear around the bend and followed their taillights as they disappeared north. The next car sported a large whip antenna on the roof. The passenger stared at him as the car rolled by, a mic in front of her lips.

  "What's going on? Is there an evacuation?" Jay shouted as he stood in the road. After a few moments, Jay gave up and continued to walk in the southbound lane. The never-ending stream of cars kept right on rolling north.

  Jay eventually heard the warbling of a police car. He looked up as his breath dissipated in front of his eyes. Moving north in the southbound lane heading right toward him, a police cruiser flashing red, white, and blue lights slowed to a stop about a dozen feet away.

  Jay watched the cars in the northbound lane and leaned on his stick, waiting as the officer opened his door.

  The cop donned a wide-brimmed campaign hat and looked more like a state trooper than a local, shut the door and hiked up his belt. He watched the slow parade of cars for a moment, then strolled over to Jay, one hand on his service revolver, the other on his belt.

  "Sorry, sir, but I'm going to have to ask you to get off the road."

  Jay didn't move. He swallowed, then spoke through a cloud of exhaled vapor. "Officer, what's going on?"

  The cop stopped about five feet away. "Sir, are you armed?"

  Jay laughed bitterly. "Only if you count this stick as a weapon.”

  The officer nodded, but never took his steely gray eyes off of Jay. Eventually he dropped his hand from his revolver. "I still need you off the road—for your own safety and that of the motorists in the convoy."

  Jay nodded. "Fair enough, but can you tell me what's going on?" He took a few shaky steps toward the shoulder. "No one will talk to me."

  "Most folks have learned not to trust vagrants."

  Jay frowned. Now he was a vagrant. "Where are all these people coming from? My daughter goes to school at IU Brookville. I'm trying to reach her."

  The officer’s stern visage cracked for a split second. "I'm real sorry, sir. I don't know much about what's going on that far south. These folks are from Blooming Grove. Maybe half a dozen miles north of campus."

  Hope quickened in Jay’s chest. "Do you know anything—anything at all? I'm desperate here…"

  The officer turned and watched the cars go by, waving at one of the drivers. "It's not good, sir. I wish I had better news, but I can’t even confirm what I’ve heard. The only thing we’ve been able to gather is mainly bits and pieces from those who made it out."

  "Those who made it out?" Jay asked shuffling forward. "My God, what happened? Please!”

  The cop turned back to Jay. The corners of his mouth sagged. "You mean besides the end of the world? What didn't happen? Last thing I heard, there was a food riot on campus. That smoke you see over yonder," he said with a jerk of his head to the south.

  "That's from Brookville. We don't know if anyone’s hurt or if there's any fatalities…we don't really know what's burning. We just know the people fleeing north have caused enough trouble for the good folks of Blooming Grove to hightail it for the FEMA camp."

  Jay shook his head. "What FEMA camp?"

  The cop rested his hands on his belt. "That's exactly what I said. I have no hard information on it at all. Some damn rumor got started, and the mayor got everybody all riled up—then the aldermen decided it was in everyone's best interest to pack up and head for one of these camps." The officer narrowed his eyes on Jay.

  "Where you coming from, by the way?"

  Jay blinked. "Bloomington, Illinois," he replied. "I've been on the road for…well, since the day after it happened, I guess."

  The officer regarded Jay with a penetrating stare and leaned forward a little. "You have? What's it like? Have you heard anything from the big cities?"

  Jay shook his head. "Biggest one that we…that I passed through was Indianapolis. That was the day after.” He leaned on the stick and sighed.

  “It was already on fire. There’s accidents on every road—especially the interstates…they're shooting each other out there. It's…"

  Jay closed his eyes, feeling the quasi-warmth of his exhaled breath against his frozen cheeks. "It's bad out there. Real bad. I was hoping things this far from Indy wouldn't be so rough…"

  The police officer shook his head. "I'm real sorry to hear it—and I'm real sorry your kid’s at that school. Way I see it, the only thing I can confirm is that it's bad all over. We've had absolutely no contact with the State Patrol. Usually they're the first ones to get up and running when something happens. But not this time." He turned and stared at the cars, offering a wave to a toddler pressed against the window of a car.

  "I've been a cop for 32 years. Never evacuated my town. Didn’t plan on doing so now, but I've never seen anything like this."

  Jay sighed. "Thank you for your time, sir." He settled his body into the walking gait again and shuffled forward, heading south.

  "Hey, where do you think you’re going?" asked the cop. "You need to get off this road before one of these yahoos decides they're gonna go north a little faster than everyone else."

  Jay paused next to the police car. "If I see someone coming, I'll get off the road." He turned and looked over his shoulder. "My daughter is still in Brookville. I can't stop—I've got to get to her."

  The cop sighed. "How long you been on foot?"

  Jay stared longingly at the police car. "Two men broke into my car this morning. They had guns…"

  "This morning?" The police officer whistled. "By the way you look, I would have guessed you’ve been walking all night."

  "I had food, water, gas…enough supplies to get my daughter and me back home. Now…?" Jay held the stick out. “Just this and what's on my back.”

  The cop grunted. "Come on, get in. I can take you back to town—you can at least find shelter at the church. There's kind of a tent city popping up. They're taking in as many drifters as they can. You might even find a warm meal tonight."

  For the first time since impact, Jay closed his eyes and said a prayer of thanks.

  CHAPTER 6

  KATE WOKE UP LAYING on her side, feeling warmth on her face. She opened her bleary eyes to stare into a crackling fire. Her backside felt the chill of the desert night, but her face and the front of her body were blessedly warm.

  She closed her eyes again and through the warm glow, Kate processed the reports coming from the rest of her body. For the first time in what felt like forever, her head wasn't aching. When she woke the first time, she couldn't stop throwing up, and she'd struggled to keep her eyes open. Part of her feared she had a concussion, but now that she lay calmly in the dirt relishing the warmth of the fire, Kate knew she was recovering

  She took care to only wriggle her wrists slightly
—she didn't want to alert anyone she'd regained consciousness just yet—and discovered her hands had been loosely bound with duct tape.

  Amateurs.

  Her feet, much to her surprise weren't bound at all. Kate realized with a surge of hope there was nothing stopping her from getting to her feet and running off into the night.

  Kate relied on her training and slowed her breathing to reduce her heart rate. The first thing she had to do was convince those around her she was still unconscious. It wasn't much of an advantage, but Kate had to take every edge she could get.

  If they believed she was asleep, then they—whoever her captors were—didn’t consider her a threat. After being duped by Stacy, kidnapped, and beaten, Kate swore to teach whoever her that she was most definitely a threat.

  To do that, she needed intel. Kate remembered pilot's SERE school from her Air Force days. Survive. Escape. Resist. Evade.

  Her mission had just changed from getting home at all costs, to escaping and retrieving the car. Without the car, she would be as good as dead in a matter of days out in the middle of the high California desert.

  Okay, I’m probably going to be a little shaky when I stand, but at least I don't feel like I need to throw up and my head doesn't hurt. Much. She moved her feet a bit. Legs are unbound…and that's probably the shittiest restraint I've ever seen on my hands. Time to assess my targets.

  Kate maintained an even breathing rate and kept up the ruse she was asleep. Behind her, voices emerged over the sound of the crackling fire.

  "…don't like it," whispered a female voice.

  Stacy. Is that even your real name? Bitch.

  "I don't care what you don't like—that's how it's gonna be," grumbled a deeper voice.

  Kate fought the urge to frown. That was the same man who’d laughed after hitting her on the back of the head. She stepped carefully through her memory of the attack. There wasn't time to even turn around when Stacy had gasped. Kate remembered the impact of something heavy at the base of her skull, then the next thing she knew, she found herself blinking through tears on the ground and staring at a blurred picture of the world.

  So where do you fit in all this?

  "This doesn't set a good example for Donnie."

  "It's the end of the world, Stace, it's time to pull your head out of your ass. We don't need to worry about setting examples for our son—"

  Stacy's son is Donnie. So you’re her husband. What a fucked up family.

  "Alan," Stacy began in a whiny voice.

  "Don't give me that Alan shit. That piece of crap car of ours was going to be our death sentence. You understand that? If this woman hadn't come along, we’d be dead in the next day or two. We were out of food and water. It was a sign, don't you get it?"

  "That's ridiculous Alan, Kate only stopped because she honestly thought I needed help—"

  "You did! We all did."

  "That doesn't give us the right to hurt her and take her stuff."

  "Dad's right, mom," said an adolescent voice shockingly close to Kate.

  She had to resist the strong urge to flinch. It sounded like the kid was right next to her. To her horror, Kate felt a hand land on her hip and fingers caressed the curve of her thigh.

  "It's the end of the world. It's like, survival of the fittest and all that."

  "Donnie! Take your hand off her!" hissed Stacy.

  "Why?" the hand gripped her ass protectively but without strength, as if Donnie wasn't sure he could. Kate imagined smashing the little perv's hand with a rock.

  "She's a keeper," Donnie mumbled sullenly.

  "Keep her?" blurted Stacy, her voice high. "You will do no such thing, young man! She is a woman, not some stray animal we found along the road."

  "Shut up, Stacy."

  There was a long moment of silence, interrupted only by the crackling fire and the sound of Donnie's hand on Kate's jeans. A shudder of revulsion rippled the length of her thigh as that hand slid up and down her leg in a clumsy fashion.

  "See? She likes me."

  "You know…" said Alan's voice in the darkness. Kate didn't like the low, husky tone of his voice at all. "If this is the end of the world…maybe we're gonna have to change some things."

  "Change what things?" Stacy asked, a little too sharply Kate thought.

  Kate heard a loud slap and Stacy whimpered. Yup, too tough, girl. He's not taking your crap.

  "We might have to change how things work."

  "No way, dad! You said I could have her!" The hand squeezed her ass again and slowly draped over the swell of her hips, fingertips brushing the button at her waist.

  Kate had seen enough post-apocalyptic movies to know what Alan was talking about and she remembered her trainers at SERE. The lessons they taught about rape and how it was used to subjugate prisoners had made a lasting impression on her and the other female pilots.

  Kate completed phase one and had survived the kidnapping. Now it was time for phase two.

  As Stacy and Alan argued over the merits of keeping Kate as a sex slave, she lashed out with her right elbow and felt a satisfying crunch of bone on bone. Donnie went down screaming—it was just the distraction she needed to roll away and get to her feet.

  With her eyes open and her back to the fire, Kate saw Stacy and Alan on a large rock about ten feet away. A gangly teenager with a mop of unruly dark curls moaned on the ground at her feet.

  Everyone shouted at once. Alan jumped up, fists balled, thick neck straining against his soiled button shirt as he surged toward the fire. Stacy screamed, her hands flying to her face as she jumped off the rock toward her son. Donnie yelled, his face contorted in a snarl of rage.

  Kate stood her ground and dropped into an open-handed fighting stance. Her feet slid on the loose gravel until they were planted shoulder's width apart, her knees bent. Her bound hands went up in front of her, elbows down to protect her ribs, her shoulders relaxed. Kate was ready.

  Donnie reached out to grab Kate's loose-fitting blouse, but she expected the move from the hand-happy teenager and moved faster, even with her hands bound. She shot her wrists forward—thanking God the dizziness and nausea from earlier in the day had largely faded to a background nuisance—and latched both hands on Donnie's windpipe. She choked off his squeal of surprise and spun through the dirt to position him between her and Alan.

  "Freeze! Or you can watch your son choked to death."

  To put emphasis on her words, she squeezed and Donnie slapped at her wrists in a pathetic attempt to dislodge her hands. He gurgled another cry and kicked at the dirt, scattering dust in front of the fire.

  Alan froze. Stacy shrieked again, a shrill sound echoing through the desert night.

  "Donnie! Kate, don't hurt him, please!"

  "Shut up, Stacy," Kate said.

  Alan took a step forward. His face, lit by the auroral lights in the sky took on a sickly green pallor.

  Kate jostled the squirming boy in front of her and dangled him like a bass near the fire. "I mean it, Alan—back the fuck up, right now!"

  Allen raised his hands, but maintained his hunched position. Kate saw in his eyes he wasn't giving up just yet.

  "Don't hurt him! He's just a boy!" pleaded Stacy.

  "Shut up, Stacy," Alan and Kate said in unison.

  A slow smile spread across Alan's face. "I like you—you got guts."

  Kate backed away, keeping the fire on her right and Donnie in front of her like a shield. Her eyes darted back and forth at the rocks and ground, illuminated by the eerie green and yellow aurora display above and the orange fire on her right.

  Where the hell is my car?

  She glanced over her shoulder. There you are…

  "Don't even think about it, Miss Pistol Pants. I got the keys," Alan said as he pulled a keychain out of his pocket and dangled it in front of the fire. "You want to get out of here, you have to come with me."

  Kate dissected her tactical situation. Her hands were bound and totally full of Donnie’s throat. Her eyes sh
ifted away from Alan, seeking anything she could use as a weapon. Scattered rocks lay at her feet around the fire, some smooth, but most jagged. The ground was dry and dusty—evidenced by the clouds kicked up by Donnie's feet as he struggled to breathe. It'd been a long time since this part of the desert had seen any significant rain.

  Damn.

  "That's right…you have to let my boy go at some point and then you’re all mine."

  Kate’s mind raced in time with her heart. Alan had at least a head on her in height with a corresponding wingspan—he’d be able to hit her before she could hit him. He also looked like he had at least 50 pounds of muscle on her. Kate had to bet on his emotions getting in the way. That would go a long way to even out the playing field, but would it be enough?

  Only one way to find out. It's time to resist.

  Without warning, Kate shoved Donnie and sent him crashing into his father. The two of them staggered back while Alan disentangled himself from his gasping, flailing son.

  Kate took advantage of the confusion and backpedaled away from the fire. She stopped just on the edge of the ring of light and gathered up a handful of sand and dirt in her right hand. In her left, she selected a small rock sporting a sharp edge.

  She looked up in time to see Alan throw his son to the ground with a curse and start toward her. "I'm gonna make you pay for hurting my boy, bitch." As he walked toward her, he unbuckled his belt with deliberate movement.

  Kate kept her face impassive and showed no emotion at all. She shifted her weight to the balls of her feet, tensed her legs, and waited. He stripped the belt off his waist and hung it like a whip from his hand.

  "Stacy, help Donnie,” he called over his shoulder. “I'll be back in a minute."

  "You leave her alone, Alan!” Stacy cried, hunched over Donnie. “You're still my husband!"

  The wicked smile on Alan's face, bathed in firelight, told Kate what he thought of the sacred institution of marriage at the end of the world.

  She waited until he was almost on her before she flicked up her hands and unloaded the fist of sand into his face. He cursed and threw his hands up to block the incoming cloud but wasn't fast enough and took the full load in the eyes. She slashed down and felt her rock bite skin.