With her warmed dinner MRE and cup of cooled water, she sat by her fire trying to calculate how much further she had to walk. She knew she didn’t use this day very well, as she couldn’t shake the shock of being left by her own father. She estimated maybe another 10 hours of walking ahead of her. If she got up early enough the next day, as dawn was breaking, she might be able to make it home before nightfall.
Cracking in the brush to her left made her stop, food halfway to her mouth. Alex set her MRE next to her, and laid her hand over the bowie knife strapped to her thigh. She waited for something to come into the light of her fire, but nothing showed. As she stared into the darkness and almost shrieked when she saw two glowing eyes staring back. Immediately Alex realized why she had felt watched during her set up. She was being stalked by a mountain lion.
Alex slowly unclipped her knife, sliding it free with as little movement as possible. She stared directly into the cat’s eyes, knowing she needed to try and intimidate it as much as possible. With her free hand, Alex reached to the fire and grabbed a large stick that held flame. Alex wasn’t a small eleven year old, but she was still only eleven, so she needed to try and make her size seem larger to the cat.
Abruptly Alex stood up and start waving her arms around. At the same moment the cat sprang toward her. Alex had just a moment to adjust her movements and swung to the side with her body, sweeping the stick through the air toward the cat. She struck the cat’s shoulder as it went past her, but not before it’s claws dug into her shoulder. Hollering in pain, Alex struck again with the stick, causing the cat’s hair to burn.
The mountain lion quickly pivoted back toward a bleeding Alex. She knew the scratch had to be deep, because she couldn’t pick up her knife hand without significant pain. As she watched the cat stalk her, she began to worry she might have to stab the animal, and she wasn’t sure she had the strength. Alex realized the cat was very focused on the fire she held, so she decided to use that to her advantage, swiping the long stick and fire directly at the cat’s head. The second swipe connected and the cat yelped, jumping to the side.
She turned toward where the cat landed and watched it run back into the woods. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there with knife in one hand, shoulder dripping blood, but she knew she couldn’t sleep in that spot. Taking out her first aid kit, she quickly tied a tourniquet above her wound, to slow the bleeding. After walking for an hour in the dark, using the stars as points of direction, she stopped and patched her arm as best she could. She would need medical attention she was sure.
Fighting to keep her feet under her, Alex felt nauseous. Pain radiated through her arm and shoulder. The fear of the cat returning had Alex carrying a flaming torch instead of a flashlight. Her makeshift bandage soaked through twice during the night. Blood didn’t really bother Alex, but seeing so much of her own made her feel light headed.
The next afternoon, after walking all night, a bloody, dehydrated Alex stumbled up to the security fence of her house. Max was the first to see her and she raced to the gate, punching in the code quickly as she noticed the injury. When Mitch came out, Alex saw just a flicker of worry, but the rest of him was the swagger of someone feeling they were right.
“Made it back girl,” Mitch said.
“Yes you bastard. Now maybe take me to get stitches?” Alex had yelled at him.
Finishing the story, Alex looked at Marcus who was hanging on her every word. The sewing was finished, and she realized it hadn’t hurt nearly as much as she had expected by an amateur. She glanced down at her side, and saw it was covered nicely with a white gauze bandage, held in place by medical tape. She moved slowly at the waist, and cursed to herself, realizing she would lose some range of motion while she healed up.
Rubbing at the silver scars that started in her right shoulder and ended just above her elbow. She never forgave her father for leaving her out like that. For years later she refused to get in the car with him alone, sure he was going to just drop her somewhere else to prove a point. Mitch never apologized, and Alex was sure he never thought he was wrong for what he did. Now, all these years later, a part of her broke as she was able to forgive him for the harshest lessons she needed. Even alone, she can survive.
“Your Dad was rough on you,” he said, pulling her back to their conversation.
“I suppose it seems like that to others. But now, I realize he prepared me for this, all of this going on around us. His lessons, and the crazy way he thought are going to be the reasons I’m able to get my children through this madness.” As she said the words, her mind immediately reminded her that so far she’d lost two children. Pain lanced through her body, which had nothing to do with her wound.
Chapter 24
The fence of the compound came into sight. The view gave Alex a jolt of familiarity. She could remember helping Mitch erect the fence. She was too young to be much of help, but she thought her Daddy was the sun in her universe. So when he found a project important, Alex thought it was the thing that needed her attention. She could see where he had added actual stone walls around the structures, leaving only the gate that was metal and could be moved.
“This is your dad’s place?” Marcus asked from behind the wheel. He had an incredulous look on his face that almost made Alex laugh. Then Easton and Candace came to mind, and her heart plummeted to her feet again. It didn’t matter that they got out with the RV and their lives just before the horde came to circle them. Marcus did a fantastic job hitting them where he had to, and avoided them when necessary. The whole time Alex was a broken mess, and couldn’t focus on anything.
“Well my brother’s now, but my father built it.”
“This is nuts. It’s like a fortress.”
“Well I didn’t say we were going to my Dad’s house. I did call it a compound. That’s what it is. I wonder where Rafe is. He should have seen us pull up,” Alex said, peering out of the windshield, looking for signs of movement. A chilling feeling crept along Alex’s spine, and she shivered. Something was wrong, she could feel it.
“I know the code to get in. I’ll jump out, open up the gate, and we’ll pull the RV in. Maybe Rafe is busy on the property somewhere,” Alex said. Marcus nodded to her, still studying the outside of the compound, and Alex just shook her head at his surprise.
Margaret met her in the RV interior and handed her the weapons she typically carried. The woman studied Alex while she strapped everything on. Alex couldn’t make eye contact, she knew Margaret would want to talk about the kids, and she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t speak of what they had to do. Instead she stepped passed Margaret and went to talk to Billie and Henry. They were huddled together on the couch, and she could see Henry was napping.
“We’re here baby,” Alex told Billie. Her little blue eyes were rimmed with red. Alex felt broken for them. But she tried to hide how she was feeling, if she fell apart, so would the kids.
“I’m going to open the gate, and we’ll pull the RV in. Then we can get settled. Sound good?” Alex asked. Billie nodded and held her brother’s hand.
Alex walked cautiously to the gate, still waiting for Rafe to approach. She was slow, hoping he would see her before he took a shot at what he thought were intruders. The house was on the other side of a large hill that was 50 yards inside the wall. But her father had installed closed circuit surveillance, which ran off of solar power. So Rafe should have been notified by video or alarm that someone was at the gate.
The RV pulled into the compound, and Alex secured the electronic lock on the gate. She instructed Marcus to leave the RV, and they would walk up to the house. Rafe would need to let her know where was best to park and RV. Even with the house, the extra living quarters on the compound would be beneficial. Henry rode on Marcus’s back, still groggy from his nap and Billie took it upon herself to hold his hand. Trust was obviously built there after he found her in the woods.
As the group rounded the hill to the driveway entrance, and the view of the house, the smell of something burn
t reached their noses.
“Oh god, no,” Alex said as soon as she recognized the smell. She took off at a sprint, rounding the last bend and sliding to a halt.
“Jesus Christ,” Marcus breathed next to her.
“Alex….” Margaret started. But Alex was already in motion, running to the back of the house.
The house, the one her father had built over years, and added to as they grew up in it, looked to be a black shell of itself. A fire had gutted the front from what Alex could see, and it wasn’t too long ago that it finally stopped smoldering. She ran to the back to see the damage, and felt a small sense of relief to see that the back of the house wasn’t as damaged, and maybe they could salvage it. But where was her brother? Had Max made it?
Alex pushed open the backdoor, which was already partially propped open. The mudroom area was in disarray, it was like someone had tossed the place looking for something. She couldn’t imagine random thieves getting into the compound without Rafe knowing and defending the house. She went straight to Rafe’s room, knowing what he would take in an emergency. His room was near the back of the house on the bottom floor. The fire hadn’t reached there, but Alex still felt apprehension when she got to the door, afraid of what she might find.
Pulling the band aid off quickly, Alex flung the door open. The room was in general order, which was a stark contrast to what she had seen in the mudroom and kitchen. She went straight to his closet, and noted quickly that his bug out bag was gone, his gun safe was open and empty, and hangers were empty hanging askew through the closet. She didn’t have a clue where Rafe was, but she knew he wasn’t here, burned in the house somewhere.
Continuing through the bottom of the house, she headed to Max’s room. If Max had made it home already, she would bunk up there. The door to the room was open, and the room was starkly bare, without a lived in feel. Alex checked the closet and there wasn’t anything hanging, and even some dust on hangers.
Alex stood, rolling things around in her mind. Alex had beat Max to Montana. That didn’t necessarily surprise her, as Max was coming from South Carolina. But Alex had partially believed Max would get here faster. With only Jack to get going, she figured her sister would have gotten to Montana faster than it had taken her with her two young children, and then picking up additional people along the way.
“Alex?” Marcus called from down the hall.
“I’m here,” she called back.
When he poked his head around the corner he stopped and leaned against the doorframe, surveying the empty room.
“So, what happened here?” Marcus asked.
“I was just utilizing my crystal ball to figure that out,” Alex said.
“Alex, I wasn’t being snide. I just thought you had a guess.”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. I can tell my sister didn’t make it, not yet at least. And from the disarray in my brother’s room, he got out before the fire. How the fire happened that’s anyone’s guess. But someone was searching the mudroom and kitchen. I don’t think that was Rafe. He would have known where everything was. He wouldn’t need to toss the place.”
“That all sounds pretty decent for deduction skills,” Marcus said.
“Sure, I’ll be Sherlock if you promise to be Watson,” Alex said.
“Well how about we just agree to not be anyone from Little House on The Prairie out here. Unless you’ll go with pigtails, and if that’s gonna happen I vote for that.”
Alex just shook her head at his joking, brushing past him to inspect the damage to the inside of the house. She saw the fire started somewhere in the front room, that area being burned the worst. The wall to the front of the house was buckled in, and obviously extremely precarious. Luckily for them, that wall didn’t support any of the upstairs, or they may not have been able to fix the house.
What Alex couldn’t determine was what actually started the fire. Kicking around burnt debris she didn’t see anything that could have shorted out and started fire. The main burnt area was across the room from the large wood stove that sat between the living room and the kitchen. As different scenarios went through her mind, a scary thought began to form. Someone had tossed the house, and then part of it burned down. What if those events were related? What if whoever was searching didn’t find what they wanted, but didn’t want any evidence left?
“Where are you Rafe?” Alex groaned.
“Well I don’t think he’s here. So we should probably make a plan,” Marcus said from behind her.
“Yes we do. And when my siblings show up, we’ll be even more prepared.”
Chapter 25
One Week Later
“Alex, where did the hammer get put?” Marcus called from the mudroom.
Alex stuck her head out from under the kitchen sink, where she was cleaning and in all honesty, searching for anything hidden.
“I think it’s in the shed with the other tools, unless Henry took it again to work on his own project,” Alex did air quotes as she said project. Henry wanted to help with the rebuild so badly, but he was just too little, and Alex was too scared of him getting injured.
“I’ll go find little man, I’m sure he’s using it,” Marcus said and turned away, leaving Alex to her musings. She had searched the house over a few times, finding nothing really out of the ordinary. Mitch had been eccentric, so some of the places he hid weapons or rations was random. And from what Alex had found, Rafe hadn’t changed that much. But nothing that warranted someone searching the house and trying to burn it to the ground.
The day they arrived, Alex, Marcus and Margaret sat together in the kitchen of the house and created a plan. Surprisingly Marcus proved to be useful yet again. He had worked construction with his sister’s husband a few times, and knew some of the basics. At least enough to fix the wall that had burned. They didn’t have glass to replace the windows, but Alex didn’t care about windows in the apocalypse.
And that’s what this was. The end of the world as they knew it. She had ventured into nearby towns twice since they arrived. The people of the towns were changed to infected beings that chased her vehicle, only for the pure reason to feast on flesh. After the second run, she decided to not make runs alone again. She wanted to avoid the infected as often as possible.
Nightly she sat outside, under the Montana stars, wondering where her brother and sister were. As the days ticked by, Alex worried more and more about them both. Max should have gotten to Montana by now. If she didn’t make it soon, Alex was afraid she never would. And there was still no sign of her brother, or any clues to where he could have gone.
That night, as she sat looking at the stars, she allowed her thoughts to wander to Easton and Candace. Their faces in her mind always brought tears, so she waited until she was alone to think of them. Her regret and guilt over what happened would never leave her. Her mind couldn’t come up with any better scenarios, but her heart didn’t believe she just left them behind.
Alex made her way back to the RV. Until the house was completely sound, they all bunked together inside. She had just opened the RV door, when the alarm for the gate sounded, freezing Alex in her tracks. They had dispatched a number of infected that had wandered near to the property. Infected could wait until the morning, but something told Alex it couldn’t wait. She let Margaret know she was heading to the gate, and grabbed her 9mm and machete.
As she rounded the hill that stood in front of the house, she could hear voices at the gate, though it was too dark to make anyone out. Voices meant live people, and that wasn’t what Alex expected. She pulled her 9 mm and decided to move more stealthily. She ran to the wall before she could be seen, and decided to sneak up on the intruders from that side.
“Oh god, please be here, Alex!” A voice called. A voice that Alex recognized. A voice she didn’t believe she would hear again in this world. The shock actually made her stop, though she felt like running full speed to the gate.
“This has to be it, I followed the map she highlighted,” another voice said.
And that put Alex into motion. She began running along the wall. When she got to the gate, she saw why the people were scared at the gate, there were infected in the woods, making their way toward them, attracted by the vehicle they had driven up. The Bronco.
“Alex!” Candace and Easton exclaimed in unison.
She couldn’t even speak and she quickly disengaged the electronic lock for Easton and Candace. They both ran inside as soon as there was room, and Alex swiftly shut it again. Spinning around she looked at the kids, and tears began to form in her eyes. Before she even thought it, she was wrapping her arms around the teens as best she could. They were all laughing and crying and hugging at the same time. Candace clung tightly, crying into Alex’s neck, Easton embracing them both.
“You made it. You found us,” Alex said between hiccupped tears and laughs. The kids looked like people that had been sleeping outdoors for a week, but they were whole. She pulled back to look at them, smiles on all of their faces. She touched their faces, looking into them, having so much in the world to say, and not knowing where to start.
“Welcome home.”
Epilogue
The roar of the motorcycle vibrated in Max’s ears. The bike flew down the gravel road running parallel to the railroad tracks. Through her helmet visor she could see her daughter, Jack on the bike ahead of her. Max had loved motorcycles before the plague. Now they were a convenience they needed. She had her bug out bag on her back, and additional supplies in her bike’s saddlebags. They traveled lightly and quickly on the bikes.
Watching the man ahead of her maneuver expertly with Jack riding behind him, she felt her heartbeat in her throat. Was she wrong to go and find him? Even now, after he’d proven himself, she still questioned trusting him with Jack’s safety. Max could have ridden with Jack, but the larger bike was heavy and she was too afraid of going down and injuring them both.
Sundown Series (Book 1): Prepared Page 24