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

by Richardson, Marcus

  Alan howled and staggered back, blinded and bleeding as his hands flew over his face. Stacy screamed and Donnie coughed.

  Kate ignored them all and dropped to one knee as she used her rock to slice through the duct tape on her wrists. It was working, but not fast enough. She’d only cut halfway through when Alan roared and charged. He had his arms out wide and leaned forward as if to tackle her.

  She knew with his speed and size, he’d flatten her—once on the ground, she’d have little chance of escaping whatever punishment he wanted to dish out. Kate however, had grown up with three older brothers who taught her more about wrestling than anything else.

  She hesitated a split second to give Alan time to get within range, then aimed her shoulder at his waist. She rammed her body into his hips with enough force to spin him around and flung herself toward the fire.

  They both ended up on the ground. Kate scrambled to her feet at the same time he did.

  "I’m gonna have a lot of fun breaking you,” Alan rumbled, dusting off his shirt.

  Kate stretched her arms straight out in front of her and pulled her fists back to her chest in one lightning quick movement. The damaged duct tape on her wrist wrists parted with a painful snap, but her hands were free.

  Now it's my turn.

  Alan charged again, this time a little more wary than before—and it turned out with good reason. Kate didn't let him take the lead this time. She raced forward and threw several quick jabs at his face.

  It was enough to throw him off balance and put him on the defensive. That was all the time she needed to lash out with her right leg and put all her strength against his kneecap.

  As he caught the motion of her leg, Alan threw his hands down and shifted his weight to protect his groin, but Kate knew kicking a man in the balls would only temporarily disable him—and most likely send him into a blind rage.

  A man can't fight if he can't stand, her older brother Sam had always been fond of saying in her youth.

  Kate bounced back a step after she heard the surprisingly loud crunch of Alan’s knee collapsing. He screamed in pain and fell to the dirt, clutching his leg.

  She moved sideways from her disabled opponent, still on her toes. Kate kept her bloody fists up and ready to engage the next threat. Her eyes locked on Stacy's.

  "I trusted you. I helped you."

  Stacy closed her eyes and looked down, sobbing into her son’s hair. "I'm so sorry! I didn't know what else to do."

  "You fucking bitch!" screamed Alan. "You broke my God damn knee!" He yelled again, the echo fading into the surrounding desert.

  Stacy tried to hug Donnie, who shoved his mother to the ground. The ungainly teenager got to his feet and glared daggers at Kate. He tried to say something but his throat was too raw from the choking she'd administered.

  The tear tracks on his face looked comical as he glanced from his writing father to his crying mother. He stared again at Kate with nothing but anger in his dark eyes.

  Kate flicked her hand at him. "What’s the matter, Donnie? You don't like it when your girls aren’t tied up?"

  He clenched his fists but said nothing.

  Kate narrowed her eyes. "Why don't you come on over here and I'll line you up next to daddy."

  "Get her son!" commanded Alan through clenched teeth. "Teach that bitch a lesson!"

  Kate debated walking over and kicking Alan in the face but decided that with step three of the SERE plan completed, it was time for step four: evasion. She turned and sprinted for the car, throwing the door open and illuminating the car’s interior.

  A cacophony of shouts erupted behind her. Intermingled in the defiant shouting from Alan, reminding her he still had the keys, she heard Stacy plead with Donnie to leave Kate alone. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw Stacy move to Alan who dragged himself toward the fire. Donnie remained standing at a distance, his skinny arms locked at his sides in impotent rage.

  "You know you still need the keys, right?" Alan growled between gasps of pain. Sweat shone like drops of fire on his face.

  Kate smiled as an idea formed her head. She looked down at the dusty, ill-packed bags Stacy's family had added to her car.

  "Hey, what’re you doing with my stuff?" snarled Alan.

  "Kate, what you doing?" asked Stacy.

  Kate dropped the bags near the fire and dusted her hands, glaring at Alan. "Gimme the keys."

  "Fuck you," Allen snapped. "You broke my leg!"

  "Want me to break the other one? You were trying to rape me."

  "It's the new world order!" Alan laughed. “Better get used to it, honey. The strong will take from the weak.”

  “Says you,” Kate muttered. She looked at Stacy and almost felt pity for the smaller, trembling woman. Almost. She bent down and scooped up the smallest of the three backpacks.

  "Who's is this? Donnie's?"

  "Kate, he doesn't have anything you need—" Stacy began.

  Kate ignored her and dropped the bag into the fire. Donnie squeaked in protest and lurched forward but Stacy kept him from getting too close.

  Kate watched as the fire melted the bag and consumed the contents.

  "You bitch!" yelled Alan.

  Kate picked up the biggest bag, which she presumed to be Alan’s. She had no idea what was in there, but whatever it was, she hoped it might explode when she dropped it in the fire.

  "Keys."

  "Fuck you!" growled Allen.

  Kate tossed the next bag in the fire sending up a shower of sparks.

  Alan screamed incomprehensibly on the ground, Stacy shrieked again in the background, but Kate picked out the jingle of keys as they bounced off a rock near her foot.

  "Get it out of the fire!" pleaded Alan.

  Mission accomplished, Kate swooped down to pick up the keys, then spun on her heel and raced for the car, ignoring the shouts of protest from behind her. She launched herself in the car and slammed the door.

  Out of the corner of her eyes Kate watched Donnie and Stacy scramble to pull the flaming backpack from the fire. Something heavy bounced off the side of the car as Alan threw rocks. By the time she got into gear and hit the gas, Donnie was running at the car. She sent up a spray of dirt and pebbles into the teenager’s face and peeled out, tires chirping as he headed east on I-10 into the desert.

  Kate was so amped over escaping that she drove straight through the night and didn't stop until she saw the first hint of dawn on the horizon. She sat there on the side of the empty highway as the remnants of her adrenaline rush finally faded.

  Suddenly frantic, she clawed through the car, looking for her phone. Did Alan take it? Or Donnie or Stacy?

  “It’s not here,” she whined through the tears. All her pictures of Jay and Leah, everything she had left to remind her of what she struggled for, what she endured for—it was gone. The maps, the waypoints—her only possible connection with the outside world, with Jay…gone in the blink of an eye. She looked at her bleeding, dirt-encrusted, trembling hands.

  What do I do?

  Kate slumped back in the driver’s seat, utterly spent. Then, totally alone in the world, abandoned and abused, something finally gave and the tears came. First one, then another, and before she knew it, Kate sobbed, only half-wanting to stop.

  CHAPTER 7

  LEAH LOOKED UP FROM her clipboard. She’d been unable to sleep—after several days of crazy lights in the sky, the first mostly dark night unnerved just about everyone. So Leah decided to make another tally of the dorm’s collected stockpile. From what she could figure, the 26 students who remained in the dorm had maybe two weeks of food and water on strict rations.

  She tapped the end of her pencil against her nose. All said, she was pretty impressed the rag-tag group had pulled together as quickly as they had. She flipped the inventory to the list of names. Twenty students supported the stockpile through donations or by bringing back supplies from scavenger hunts. The six holdouts would get a share too—they had all agreed no one should starve—bu
t she wondered how long it would take for the majority to decide anyone who chooses to sit idle wouldn’t eat.

  “Leah.”

  “Mmmm?” she replied, still perusing the list of those who stayed in the dorm during the crisis. She grimaced. They still didn’t have much news from the outside world. Four days in—despite the firetrucks and police cars that raced back and forth across campus—no one had any solid information.

  “Leah,” hissed Thom from the window across the room. “Come look at this.”

  “Okay,” she sighed. “Just let me write down—”

  “Leah, you need to see this, right now.”

  She bit back her retort and moved around the boxes of cereal and crackers stacked up in neat piles next to jugs of water.

  “Fine. What’s so important out there?”

  He stepped back from the window and rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I think we better wake everyone up.”

  Leah stood in the window and stared at the scene across the street. The next dorm, already sporting several broken windows on the ground floor, hosted a crowd of people in the street. Without a cue from any central leader that she could see, the group—faces covered by hoods and heavy coats—surged through the busted front doors and a few windows.

  Egged on by those in the street, the crowd continued to move into the building. Soon things sailed through open windows to those down below. She watched as stereos, computers, boxes full of who knew what—all of it dropped from the second and then third floors as looters ransacked the dorm.

  Leah took an involuntary step from the window when several hooded figures in the street turned and pointed at her own building. She ducked around the wall and stared at Thom, her hands trembling.

  “They’re coming…”

  “We’ve got to get everyone out of here,” Thom said, already moving for the door.

  Leah heard a shrill scream echo down the street. There were still students in the dorms—not as many as a normal school day—kids like her, trapped with no where else to go.

  “No, Thom—we’ve got to blockade ourselves in. Is that the right word?”

  “I don’t think so…isn’t that for a navy or something?”

  Leah shook her head. “It doesn’t matter—help me wake everyone up, we’ve got to block the stairwells.”

  “We need to run, Leah,” Thom said as she pushed her way through the room and tripped on a box of cereal. He helped her to her feet as they reached the door. “We can’t stay here.”

  “Well, we can’t leave,” she said, pointing at the food and water. “They’ll take everything and we’ll have nothing left. And if they catch us trying to run?”

  More screams added emphasis to her words. The people in street stopped their silent act and a low rumble filtered through the closed windows.

  “Wake up! Everyone get up!” Leah shouted, slamming her open hand along the doors leading toward the stairwell at the other end of the floor. “We’re under attack! Everyone get up! Hurry!”

  “Leah, this is…”

  She ignored Thom. How would Kate handle this?

  Leah knew without a doubt what her take-charge stepmother would do and turned, halfway down the hallway. “Thom, either help me or get out of the way.” Without waiting for his answer, she slammed her hand on the door in front of her.

  Hunter appeared and blinked red-rimmed eyes. The stench of burning incense exploded from his room. “What’s all the commotion on the ocean, man?” he asked with grin.

  “Good lord,” Leah muttered as she waved away the smell. “Look, there’s looters across the street tearing things apart. They’re coming here next—we have to get ready—”

  “Hey, man…I’m a lover, not a fighter…”

  “You’ll be a corpse if they take our food and you starve to death!” Thom shouted as he ran by. “Wake up! Everyone get the fuck up! We need help!” he said, hitting doors on his way to the far side of the floor.

  Leah smiled then turned back to Hunter who looked a lot more sober than he had a few seconds before. “Come on, help me spread the word. You can do that, right?”

  Hunter grinned. “Oh hells yeah. Hang on a second.”

  “They’re not listening,” Thom complained from the other end of the hall. A few sleep-bedraggled heads poked out of doors, but the vast majority of the students on their floor hadn’t answered the call to arms.

  “Oh, they’ll listen now, man,” Hunter said, reappearing in the hallway wrapped in a ratty blanket and carrying a huge bongo drum.

  “What the—” Leah began.

  “Time to wake the dead!” Hunter pounded away on the drum, creating a horrible syncopated rhythm that made Leah clench her teeth. But she had to admit, it was damn loud.

  In seconds, almost every occupied room on the floor opened as people staggered out to complain about the racket. Hunter, oblivious to the shouts, continued yelling about fighting corporate greed and capitalistic monopolies while hammering away at his bongo drum.

  Leah ran up to him, pushing past several students wrapped in blankets and quilts. “Hunter! It’s okay, thank you,” she said, grabbing one of his wrists. She turned away from his sheepish grin and addressed the grumbling students.

  “Everyone listen up—we don’t have a lot of time. There’s a group of looters across the street ransacking—”

  “Oh come on, we already went over this—we can’t stop them from taking what they want from other buildings,” someone argued.

  A gunshot, like a muffled firecracker in a trashcan, shut down the conversation. Screams chased the weapon’s report.

  “Tell that to them. They’re ready to come here next. We need to block the stairs and we need to do it now.”

  “We can’t do that—we need to talk to them,” one girl said, looking around for support.

  “There’s no time,” Thom said, dragging an armload of cushions from an abandoned room down the hall. “Someone help me throw this shit down the stairs.”

  “Wait!” Leah said, her hands raised. “They’re not here yet—we should start on the second floor. Let’s fill that up then retreat up here. Right?”

  Hunter’s friend Zack appeared from his room. “Guys, they set fire to Building A! I think there’s a dead body in the street…”

  “No bueno compadres,” cried Hunter. “Dude—this shit’s gettin’ real.”

  “I still think we need to talk to them,” argued the girl.

  “Then you go talk to them—or make a committee or something,” hissed Leah. “I want to block the stairs. I want to live to see my family again and that food and water,” she said pointing down the hallway to the common room, “is the only thing that will help me do that right now. They take that from us and we’re as good as dead. Unless anyone has a better idea?”

  No one spoke, but the noise from the street grew louder, like the gathering of several dozen voices.

  “To the stairs!” Hunter bellowed, throwing his arm in the air. Draped in his blanket, he appeared like a drunken Caesar, charging to battle.

  “I can’t believe I’m following that stoned asshole,” muttered one of the guys as he put his glasses on.

  Leah smiled. “Okay, let’s split up—Thom, you guys take half of us down that side of the building. Everyone else who’s willing to help,” she said at the would-be a negotiator girl, “follow me.”

  She didn’t stop to see if anyone followed her until she reached the 2nd floor landing and turned to find about a dozen students pour out of the darkened stairwell. She stood in the quasi-darkness, lit only by the common room’s windows.

  “So what’s the plan?” someone asked.

  “We already went through most of the rooms on this floor, so the doors are open,” Leah began. “Let’s grab all the furniture—heavy stuff—and throw it down the stairs. If we make a big enough mess, maybe they’ll leave us alone and just take what’s on the first floor.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?” he asked, stepping back as the others fanned out, shouting
to each other as they broke into several rooms. “That's the plan?”

  Leah shrugged. “Unless we find a bunch of guns or swords or something, I don’t know what else to do. Do you know how to make a wall?”

  “Oh, it can't be that hard,” said Hunter.

  “We are so fucked,” the complainer moaned.

  “Game over, man…” muttered another dissenter.

  “Actually, he’s right—it’s not that hard. My name’s Aaron. My uncle’s a mason,” said another student, eyeing two students as they dragged a mattress from the room closest to the stairwell.

  “Very cool—secret societal action,” intoned Hunter in a knowing voice.

  “No, not that kind,” he said at Leah's raised eyebrow. “The guys who build houses, you know?”

  “I don’t see any bricks—” Leah began.

  “Doesn’t matter, it’s the same principle. Everyone listen up!” Aaron shouted. “You need to bring the heavy stuff first—bed frames, desks, dressers, whatever. Throw that down first and then put the little stuff in between, like layers.”

  Leah clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re in charge.” She joined the struggle to pull a bunk bed from a nearby room and drag it screeching across the linoleum floor.

  As Aaron shouted commands for people down the hall from Thom’s group to focus on heavy furniture first, Leah’s group forced the bed frame down the stairs. She stepped back, watching in relief as the bed broke apart into pieces of jagged wood when it careened down the wide stairs, making an awful racket. Several girls screamed at the commotion.

  “That’s one,” Leah said to the cheers of her teammates. They jumped out of the way as another group brought a heavy wooden desk to join the nascent barricade.

  Leah and the students on her side of the building worked for about fifteen minutes, sweating and swearing in the dark, flinging more and more furniture down the stairs, layered with books, computers, speakers, boxes of clothes, and anything else they could use to fill in gaps before the next layer of beds and desks careened down the stairs.