by Ryan Schow
Jagger was always a good looking man, and being military, he’d taken care of his appearance. But now he was wearing clothes with blood and dirt on them. His hair had grown out, his beard—which was non-existent for years—was now full and no longer itching. He was lean, though. Too lean. Where before he worked out regularly, now he was constantly walking, riding, scavenging, and he wasn’t eating much so he’d grown skinny. Far too skinny for his own liking.
What would Lenna think when she saw him? God, he missed her so much. He missed the boys, their lives together, everything. Looking up Presidio, knowing home was but a dozen blocks away, he could not stop the unwanted mixture of both hope and dread.
Climbing to his feet, he said, “You ready?”
She picked up her bike, took a deep breath, then blew it out and looked at him. Her hair was a mess and she was all skin and bones. But she was ready. He smiled and nodded his head and then said, “I’m so proud of you.”
She looked down, suddenly nervous, and then she looked up the street to where they were going and started up the hill. He picked up his bike and started after her.
They trudged up three long blocks passing Sacramento Street and Clay. At the top of the hill they hit Washington. A few blocks later he saw his street. His excitement soared. For the most part, the homes were still in tact. Then he saw the smoked cars in front of what would be his house and everything changed. When he saw his house, his stomach dropped and he felt sick. His nightmares were officially coming true.
The girl looked back, saw the panicked look in his eyes, saw how he looked like he was falling apart. If he started walking on his own, he didn’t realize it. When he was within half a block of the house his eyes flooded and everything bright and hopeful in his heart turned black.
His house looked like it was the casualty of a car bomb.
There were exploded pieces of a body on the street near an SUV and a Maxima, both shells of their former selves. Across the way, in some other wreckage from some other mess, was a corpse of a boy laid out sideways. He thought of Hagan, and Ballard. Hurrying over, he slowed and relaxed when he realized it was someone else. Neither of his boys.
But the house…
The girl just stood there in the middle of the street watching this, not knowing what to do, or how to act. He was talking to himself now. Mumbling incoherently. He didn’t want to go inside the house, but he had to. He had to! It was collapsed, not entirely pancaked on itself, but close enough that maybe, possibly…
Dropping all his gear on what would have been the front yard, he headed inside the devastated home and the first thing he saw was the note.
Oh thank GOD!
“They left a note,” he said giddy, holding it up and heading back outside to where the girl was standing. “They left a note!”
She didn’t move. She merely stared at him.
To her that meant more walking. To him he was okay with it because he pretty much knew where they were heading. It was only a few miles from there. That meant a day, two tops depending on the walk over and how much light they had left. Then again, he could travel at night. There were no more drones, and since there were no heaters inside the homes, what would it matter if they were cold outside or cold inside? He needed to see his wife and kids.
“Time to go to college,” he said.
They got on their bikes and rode back to Presidio, then dropped down and cruised the streets where they could. By the time they hit the hellish mess that was the Public Storage building, it was dark. They stopped for a moment at the blown out smithereens of a Target building. She stayed awake while Jagger took a brief cat nap. By the time they got to Masonic it was pitch black outside.
Hayes is around there somewhere, he thought.
They passed McAllister Street, kept going. They passed Fulton and Grove next, and then he saw it: Hayes Street. He saw the college, went up the steps, tried the door.
It was locked.
“There must be another way around,” he said, fighting not to get dejected, but operating off of such little energy. “Let’s leave the bikes and wagons.”
She did as she was told. They walked around the corner, saw two men with guns.
Jagger pulled her close, slid her behind him using his body as cover. He thought about the gun stuffed under his shirt but didn’t go for it. No reason to alarm the men, even though they scared the crap out of him.
The two strangers stopped in the middle of the street. They were all facing each other, each waiting for the other to move first. For Jagger, there was no use turning around and taking two in the back, but if he drew now, he’d eventually put the girl in the crossfire. The thing was, you just never knew who was who on a night like this in a world like this.
The older of the two men cleared his throat and said, “It’s not safe to be out here, friend.”
“It’s not safe to be anywhere,” he replied.
And it wasn’t.
Chapter Eighty-Two
Rider and Stanton head down Ashbury toward the house where the boys and Atlanta were stashed. They encountered two shadows, a man and a child. The man shoved the child behind his back and waited in the darkness in perfect silence.
Rider said, “It’s not safe to be out here, friend.”
“It’s not safe to be anywhere.”
“You okay?” Stanton asked.
“I guess,” he replied. “But not really.”
Rider turned his flashlight on them; they both winced and turned away.
“The girl doesn’t look so good,” Rider said. She was a cute little thing, but too skinny, her hair dirty, her face smudged with the wear of a few long weeks.
“She’s worse off than me, but probably just as tough.”
“You walk like a soldier,” Rider said.
“I was going to say the same to you.”
“What branch?”
“Marines, you?”
“Spent time with the company,” Rider said. “You a good man?”
“You’re the spook, so you tell me.”
“That girl yours?”
“No.”
Rider seemed to think about this, then: “That’s reassurance enough for me.”
The four of them met in the street. Rider extended a hand, which the man shook. “I’m Rider and this is Stanton.” Stanton and the man shook hands, then Rider said, “What’s your name, miss?”
The girl looked up, sort of scared of him, maybe because of his croaking voice, or perhaps because he and Stanton were both armed and practically dripping with the blood of a brutal attack. Fortunately the near moonlight wasn’t bright enough to show her the colors of the carnage they wore, but their presence had her pulling herself into the man next to her.
“She’s shy,” the stranger said. “You guys okay? I know that smell.”
“The gangs around here, they’re trying to assert themselves over folks who are just doing their best to survive and protect their families.”
“How many?” he asked. As in how many did they kill.
Rider looked at Stanton, to which Stanton said, “Thirteen, maybe fourteen.”
“Just the two of you?” he asked, impressed.
Both men nodded, not having to say any more. Then a front door opened and Atlanta popped her head out. “Rider?”
“Grab the boys, Atlanta. It’s safe.”
She shut the door, then turned back to the man. The moon was going behind the clouds again, taking away some of the light.
“Where you from?” Stanton asked.
“Here,” the man replied. “But I’ve been traveling a bit. Returning from San Diego. Found this one in Sacramento.” He put his arm around the girl protectively, fatherly. “You got kids?”
Rider said “No” at the same time that Stanton said “Yes.”
“Two,” Stanton said. “You?”
“Two boys, although, I don’t…I’m not sure…” he said. He seemed exhausted, too tired to know how to finish that sentence without losing himself to t
he same fears Stanton possessed since the very beginning.
Just then the three kids emerged from the house and joined them in the street. They were all shadows together, the three smallest shadows being sleepy and slow, ready for a real bed, a real place to call home again, a real community where they could be safe.
“Never got your name,” Rider said to the man.
“Jagger,” he said. “Jagger Justus.”
“Dad?” one of the boys said, breathless with emotion.
Everything suddenly went so still the perfect silence seemed to bear a silky, measurable weight.
“Hagan? Ballard?”
The two boys rushed through the darkness and grabbed on to the man in a fierce hug. The joy of the most unexpected reunion ever began eliciting tearful sobs from both the man and his boys. Rex and Stanton stood there, trading baffled looks, the kind of looks that said, “What in the hell are the odds of this?”
Standing up, his boys latched to him like children despite their ages and the growing up they had to do to survive this war. Jagger turned to the little girl who stepped back from the boys and said, “These are my two boys, Hagan and Ballard.”
Both boys said hello to the girl, and for a long moment, no one said anything, not even the girl. Then in the smallest voice ever, she said, “Hello.”
“What’s your name?” Ballard said.
“Elizabeth.”
Everyone introduced themselves to Elizabeth and the girl seemed to relax. Atlanta, however, seemed to attach to her most.
She said, “You have pretty hair. I can wash it when we get to the college.”
“You mom?” Jagger asked, speaking in fragments only because it was clear he was too hopeful for good news and too fearful of bad news that he couldn’t quite string the words together.
“She’s okay,” Ballard said.
“She’s at the college, which is where we’re headed,” Hagan said. Then to Rider: “Is there room for two more?”
Just as he was saying there most definitely was, they heard the sound. It was the sound of Detroit muscle struggling for every foot of covered ground. One dim headlight rounded the corner on Ashbury and headed their way.
Jagger and the girl tensed, but Hagan said, “They’re with us. I think.”
The Olds was absolutely beat to hell. The thing looked like it survived a wrecking yard, with its smashed up hood, no windshield, crunched exterior and smoking engine.
Just then everyone saw how damn bloody Rider and Stanton were, but they said nothing. Indigo simply pulled up next to the pack and said, “You okay?”
“Ran into some trouble,” Rider said.
“Us too.”
“Did you handle it?” Stanton asked.
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“We decided it was best to stay together,” Rex said from inside the car.
“Did you decide that all on your own?” Rider probed.
“Not really,” Indigo said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the Horde burned the house down. Almost burned us, too.”
“And…?”
“Let’s just say my obsession with revenge has come to a fruitful conclusion,” Indigo replied.
“What now?” Stanton asked, more to his brother-in-law than to Indigo.
Rex said, “Beans and wieners, clean water, a warm bed and some good company.”
Everyone laughed, then they all headed back to the college where Rider introduced them to the security staff before ushering them inside.
“I’ll get you guys some rooms and a place to clean up,” Rider said.
Atlanta said, “Elizabeth can stay with me.” Elizabeth looked up at Jagger, almost scared, but with the question in her eye.
“You okay with that?” he asked.
She smiled the slightest bit and so Jagger nodded and said, “It’s okay by me then.”
Rider introduced them to several more people, women with kind faces and eyes that were tired but alert and eager to help.
Everyone got set up with rooms, then Jagger asked Rider, “Do you know Lenna? My wife?”
“I do,” he said. “Pulled her out of the house along with your boys.”
“You did that?”
Rider gave him a sideways grin. He wasn’t big on taking credit for things. Just doing them was enough. With all the difficult things he’d done in his life, all the horrible things he’d done in the name of covert operations, and war, he felt he was finally starting to balance the equation of his life. Perhaps one day the positive would outweigh the negative and he’d have a way into the better echelons of the afterlife.
“I can’t thank you enough.”
“She’ll be wanting to see you,” he said. “Let me take you to her.”
Jagger looked back to where the boys were with Atlanta and Elizabeth. They were turning one of the classrooms into a bedroom for the four of them. The classroom was lit by candles brought to them by ladies who were once mothers, wives and grandmothers, but had since been widowed and left childless by the war.
More than anything, Rider knew they were happy to have children in the community, even of they weren’t their own. In times like this, they were their children, and for that some of the wounds were once again able to heal. They would not be without their scars, but to have the sounds of life and happiness around would certainly begin to tip the scales in this life.
“They’ll be okay,” Rider said, holding a candle. “This place is heavily fortified, and now that some of the more unsavory elements in this neighborhood are…neutralized…we should be safe for awhile. Like I said, Lenna will want to see you.”
They walked down the hallway until he came to a room where the door was shut and glass was painted with black paint for privacy. “This is her.” He handed Jagger the candle and said, “I’m three rooms up on the right side if you need me.”
“You okay without the candle?” he whispered.
“Spent a lot of time here, so yeah. I know this place in the dark.”
With that he left Jagger to his wife. He took a stabilizing breath then walked through the darkness to Sarah’s room. His room. He both heard and felt the rush of blood in his ears. His pulse raced and he felt a little sweat gather around his collar. Why was he so nervous around her? He knew why. He didn’t even have to ask the question.
This is the back door out of the apocalypse, he told himself. This is how I right the many wrongs. In this place. With this woman.
He stepped into the room and a sleepy voice said, “Rider?”
“It’s me, baby.”
He heard her sit up in bed and he went to her. She was reaching out a hand and he took it. “What’s wrong with your voice?”
“You know the battle taking place on the other side of the college?”
“Yeah. It’s over though.”
“That was me and Stanton.”
Her voice suddenly had life to it. “Are you okay?”
“Other than a sore throat, yeah. I feel pretty great, now that I’m with you.”
“Come to bed with me,” she said in her soft Cuban accent.
“I need to wash up first.”
“I don’t care about that,” she said, thinking he was talking about feeling dirty.
“I’ve got a lot of blood on me, none of it mine, but it’s starting to feel sticky and we don’t want the sheets looking like a crime scene in the morning.”
“Okay,” she said, disappointed. “When you come back, will you lie with me?”
“Of course I will.”
“Will you tell me you love me?”
Smiling in the darkness, squeezing her hand just a little tighter, he said, “I will. I’ll tell you, and then you can tell me.”
“It’s a deal,” she said.
Jagger opened the door and quietly entered the room. He heard the rhythmic sounds of Lenna sleeping and nearly broke into tears. She was his whole life. He’d spent so much time terrified he’d lost her and the boys,
yet there she was, before him, turned sideways on a full-sized mattress with her back to him.
He leaned down, pulled her hair across her face like he always did in the mornings. After a moment, he began gently rubbing her back.
She stirred, then stopped flat.
“Jagger?”
His heart leapt and he said, “Hi sweetheart.”
She rolled over in bed, saw him by the candlelight and with instantly wet eyes said, “Is that really you?”
She reached up, touched his face with her hand and started crying. He set the candle on a nearby chair, kicked off his shoes and said, “I’m sorry I stink, but it’s been a long journey.”
She held him that night, not letting go, startling herself awake every so often, touching him to make sure he was indeed real, then telling him how much she loved him, how much she missed him, how much she needed him.
When they woke the next morning, he got up early, padded down the hall where the kids were playing and watched them. Mostly he watched Elizabeth. She was starting to open up again, or maybe for the first time. His heart broke and mended at the sight of her. Lenna always talked about having a girl…funny how sometimes these things worked out.
She saw him and ran up to him, hugging him.
“I love it, here,” she said, her voice not so small anymore, her words not so uninhibited.
“I want you to meet Lenna. She’s my wife and the boys’ mother.”
She took his hand and he walked her down the hall, smiling at all the new faces, introducing himself and Elizabeth to them. When they got into the room, Lenna was sitting in the chair, pulling her hair into a short ponytail. She looked up and saw them both and smiled, her eyes going back and forth from the girl to him.
“Lenna, this is Elizabeth. Elizabeth, this is my wife Lenna.”
“Well hello,” Lenna said, instantly drawn to the child. The girl started to reach for Jagger, but stopped, unsure of what to do.
“Hi,” she said, small again, nervous.
“I found her in Sacramento several weeks back. I wanted someone to travel with, and she needed a place to stay. I was wondering if it was okay with you if she could stay with us?”