“Pay attention, Lex.” He jolted her back, causing her to almost drop the pad. “You’re going to take my bug-out bag and empty most of yours. Carry only one change of clothes; you don’t need more.” He took several deep breaths and continued. “Take this highway, west. Get to a store, smaller is better, immediately. My bag will have most of what you need, but you’ll also need to buy the following ...”
She waited for her shopping list, but he was quiet. She looked up, pen poised over the pad, making sure he was still conscious. He had his eyes upturned, thinking, just like she remembered him doing when he would tell her stories as a child.
“Write,” he demanded.
He proceeded to give her a list of items they would need to buy at a store. He said they would need to prepare themselves for a long journey. They would stop at friends’ houses along the way, but ultimately they needed to get back to their home in Tucson, where they would be safe with their aunt and uncle.
She wrote down everything he told her, and listened to the other things as well, paying attention as if she were receiving a vital homework assignment. With a near-photographic memory, she knew she wouldn’t forget any of it. Yet, none of what he told her clicked, as her mind wandered, running away from this. It was like an HD movie playing before her while she was recording it in her mind, so she didn’t have to really pay attention as she could always hit “rewind” and watch the important parts again.
She couldn’t accept what she was seeing and what he was telling her. None of it made sense, especially when her eyes fell from his and caught the surreal image of the sign sticking out of him, the red stain on his shirt a little larger every time she looked.
“Lexi!” he croaked. “Look at me. This is important ...” He paused, and took several more breaths before continuing. His color had been slowly slipping from his face and now he looked terribly pale, even with the bright splashes of sunlight angling through the freckled windshield.
“I don’t have long now and you two need to get going. Remember, first get the food and supplies and get back to the highway. Stop at Abe’s place. You have the address and inside my bag is a map if you need it. Read it and the other things later when you’re safe. Then get back to the highway.” His voice, normally booming like a radio commercial, was weak, barely above a whisper. “The highway will take you home.”
He paused for a long moment.
“I’m sorr ...”
His lip drooped, mouth holding onto his last word, but would never let it go.
He was gone.
She peered at his blanched face, and then out his door, her vision blurry from her silent tears, her face streaked with black and made more macabre by her runny Goth makeup. Only just then did she notice her brother standing there, head bobbing up and down as he sobbed, eyes just peeking above the door. His hands like hooks, clutching so hard over the opening his knuckles were white. He looked like some morbid bobble-head doll.
Run away, Lex!
This was the only action she could fathom right now.
She reached behind her dead father and pulled out his wallet, just as he had instructed, along with his cell phone firmly held by the ashtray door. These, with the pen and paper, went in the open front pocket of his bag, where they were zippered shut.
She looked once more at this man she had hated for so long, who sired and then abandoned her and her brother, unsure what emotions she was supposed to feel or not feel.
Swiping the car keys out of the ignition, she burst out of the front seat, the bug-out bag already making its way onto her shoulders. Over the roof she barked, “Come on Travis, we’re leaving,” her voice raw and penetrating.
Lexi threw open the creaky trunk of her father’s beloved Plymouth Duster—perhaps it was the only thing he loved.
She rummaged through her rolling Hello Kitty bag—an absentee present from him when she was a kid, resurrected from storage for their meeting, as a reminder that she’d grown up without him. She did exactly what he said and removed all its contents but one change of clothes. He hadn’t said, but she went for comfort as opposed to the ultra-short black dress, punctuated with Goth boots that she currently wore.
Hurriedly, she closed her bag and withdrew it and her brother’s plain rolling black bag and slammed the trunk shut, shoving the rabbit’s foot and keys into her father’s pack.
They were the keys to my father’s coffin flashed momentarily in her head.
“Travis, I’m going to leave you if you don’t come.” She bellowed in a voice stripped of emotion.
Ripped from his mounting, Travis shuffled over to his sister, stepping beside her, while wiping his eyes and nose with the back of his hands.
“Daddy told us to get moving. Take your bag.” She had already set their bags down and extended their handles. She thrust his to him and then turned and walked west, not even looking to see if he would follow.
But he did, silently except for his sniffles and his bag’s rollers protesting on the warm asphalt.
She stopped for a moment, Travis in lockstep, and risked a glance. Her father’s prized car—it seemed fitting he would die in it—shimmered, like some mirage that never really existed and would float away into the growing heat.
She didn’t even notice, and would only later remember the orange billowing cloud in the distance, shaped like a mushroom.
Chapter 2
Frank
Frank Cartwright sprang upright, sending his Prepper Brothers book tumbling into the predawn darkness, clanging off the unseen metal staircase in front of him. First stumbling over the coffee table, he bounded to the living room window, his bum knee warning him not to push it any further than he was.
As he peered out into the night, his sluggish mind continually replayed the bomb-sound that woke him, trying to determine if it was real or part of an interrupted nightmare. He’d fallen asleep after a full day working on his land, rebuilding the back drainage area in preparation for the seasonal rains and spraying his crops against those damned locusts eating up his corn. The Michelob Light he’d opened just before falling asleep was pouring onto his tile floor.
A distant red glow illuminated soft billowing smoke, which seemed to come from the area where his gate would be, and this confirmed that it was not a nightmare. This was real.
Without thinking (the advantage of years of planning and repetition), Frank slipped on his rig—Glock already holstered—and then hoisted on his hefty vest, sporting four preloaded thirty-round mags for his AK, and snapped it snugly around his slightly bulging midriff. Finally, he dropped his AK and homemade sling over his head and right shoulder, and mounted the metal stairwell to a portico above. This gave him the visibility he needed to see which assholes were out there intending to kill him.
Three older-model civilian trucks, headlights blazing, bounced along his long washboard-riddled driveway, racing toward his house. This was further confirmation of their intentions. It wasn’t a stealth operation, but one of braggadocio. They were coming to kill him and take his stuff. They obviously didn’t know him or his unwillingness to go down without taking everyone with him.
He lifted his pre-positioned 7mm Remington Magnum, fitted with a new Armasight Vampire night-vision scope, and the world instantly burst into a hazy green-gray light. He watched the trucks approaching fast and focused on the driver of the second one, figuring he could then immediately fire upon the first truck before its driver would have reacted. At the last moment, he turned on the IR illuminator, making his target clear, and squeezed the trigger. The glorious sound of the seven-millimeter’s boom and the truck’s instant swerve established he’d struck pay dirt.
In a smooth and effortless motion, he cycled another round, painted the first truck’s driver, and fired again. But this time, he couldn’t confirm a hit as the three trucks’ headlights flashed out the night vision. He laid his rifle down, pulled back the charging handle on his AK, and flipped the selector to Auto—perhaps this was not the smartest move tactically, but h
e was pissed at this point. Standing up tall and exposed, but still unseen, he flicked on the spotlights. As if lit by the midday sun exploding from a passing flotilla of clouds, the front of his house and driveway were instantly bathed in bright light. There was no hesitation as he let loose a full burst on the first truck. Its brakes locked and it veered hard right, directly into the path of the second truck, which coasted right into it. Now, both the first and second trucks appeared lifeless. Frank knew the occupants were soon to follow.
Swapping magazines, he turned his AK’s attention to the third vehicle, already pulling a U-turn twenty yards behind the two dead trucks, and just out of the spotlight’s cone of light. The door of the second truck popped open and a passenger bolted out and ran to the third pickup, turning back to glare indignantly in Frank’s direction.
Now it was fun.
Frank flipped the selector to Semi-Auto and aimed at the running man, squeezing off a couple of shots at a time. But the darkness and the distance assisted the target, making it too hard to get a good site picture. With the magazine emptied in the running man’s direction, Frank knew he had missed as the man leapt without effort into the bed of the third truck, which was already bounding back down the drive, and to safety.
Frank slid down the staircase’s handrails, having practiced this move several hundred times. But this time he hit the floor hard and icepicks of pain detonated in his unprotected knee—he’d be hobbling for a week or two, for sure.
Limping to his kitchen counter, where he’d left his damned brace, he cursed with every step. Barely stopping, he latched it over his pants and shuffled to his gunroom, where he switched magazines. He threw open the front door and paused.
But for a lingering cloud of dust and a ringing in his ears, it seemed quiet. In the distance, the third truck’s engine and bouncing undercarriage were the only sounds. He was sure he had won this battle, yet he couldn’t help but feel this war was just starting.
He had been prepping for a moment like this for most of his life, especially the last twelve years. He was sure that American society would come crashing down upon itself at some point, and when it did, he was just as sure that bad guys would show up on his doorstep and try to take what he had. But as far as he knew, nothing had happened. Of course, he’d been working outside most of the day. He hadn’t bothered to turn on the TV or glance at his phone for news. So, maybe the world had ended and he was just the last to find out.
He risked a straight run—or rather stumble—from his front door. Normally he would have gone out the back, enjoying the safety of the diminishing darkness, waiting for movement from anything before striking. But he needed to find out who these men were and what was coming next.
With his AK leading the way, he slowed his approach to the first truck, an old Chevy from the late 50s. It was classic, but now filled with punctures all exactly 7.62 millimeters around.
The passenger side creaked open and an unarmed man flopped onto the ground with a grunt, his rapid but shallow breaths his only movement. Frank pulled a Maglite from his vest and illuminated the second truck and then the first to confirm what he saw in his scope; both drivers were dead. Using the bright beam of light, he searched around both trucks, confirming there were no other signs of life.
He slung the AK to his back and drew his Glock while focusing the flashlight’s beam on the only living assailant. He was a well-groomed man in his 20s, wearing paramilitary pants and a T-shirt, with several new holes courtesy of Frank. The man was bleeding from his chest, cheek, and mouth. He didn’t have long before he’d be experiencing Hell’s fiery grip.
“Who are you?” Frank bellowed at the man.
Gurgle-gurgle was his only reply.
Frank moved closer, his flashlight inches away from the dying man’s face. He let the barrel of his Glock ask the question again, pushing it hard into one of the man’s chest wounds.
The man groaned in pain and then said something in a foreign tongue.
Was that Arabic?
“Who are you?” Frank asked once more, thinking the ringing in his ears prevented him from hearing properly. “This is the last time I’ll ask.” He punctuated this statement by clunking his Glock against the man’s temple, and then shoving it against his forehead.
The man’s throaty protest was weak. But then he started whispering something.
Frank put his ear near the man’s mouth. And this time, he heard it very clearly. He just didn’t want to believe it.
“Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar... Allahu Ak ...”
Chapter 3
Lexi & Travis
She was numb. What else could she be after watching the man she hated die?
Lexi focused on the sound of her feet. The clomp-clomp-clomp of her boots on asphalt, heating up under the Florida sun with each passing second. Just above this was the thrumming bray of her brother’s incessant pleas to stop, to talk, to cry, and what else she didn’t know and didn’t care. Then there was her throbbing head from hitting the car’s side window. Rounding out the crescendo of clamorous pain assaulting her temples was a shrieking chorus of a trillion cicadas, clicking their own demands for attention.
None of this could crowd out that image of her father bleeding to death in front of her.
So, she focused on her walking. Walking felt like a move in the right direction. She wasn’t really walking to some place, but away from another. She was walking away from the accident, away from their dead father, and most of all, away from the emotional agony. If she stopped, she feared this hellish monster of her emotions would catch up and devour her. So, her feet marched one in front of the other, as if on automatic pilot.
After a while, Lexi let her mind go, and the memories of her mom and dad washed over her and drowned out the symphony of her pain. But she couldn’t deal with any of it: her brother, her father, what they were supposed to do next. She couldn’t deal with herself.
How was she expected to live with both her parents dying, and one of them dying in front of her? It was not right. It was so unfair. Why did she and her sniveling brother have to come to Texas and drive all the way to Florida? If they’d stayed at home, their dad, no matter how much she detested him, would still be alive. Now, both their parents were dead.
And to compound their problems, neither of them had their phones with them. That was the deal: they’d left their phones at home. They’d be together and talk, like real people and not have textus-interruptus—as he called it—every five seconds. It was just one more thing in the long list of things their father had done to them. Of course, his phone was dead. He probably forgot to charge it before they left. So, Lexi couldn’t call their Aunt Sara and Uncle David and let them know they were safe.
Her boots stumbled one after the other, an unconscious limp growing with each mile they covered. And she focused again on the sound of her steps. Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.
Most of all, she just walked, not thinking about where she was going or what she was doing, letting the haze of her anguished thoughts drown out her conscious mind, trying hard to keep it from spending any time on the issues that hurt too much.
After a while, a disordered quiet shrouded her. Maybe the adrenaline finally melted off in the heat. Her thoughts were no longer screaming at her and neither was her brother.
Travis!
She abruptly halted and spun around expecting her brother to be right on her heels, as he had been the whole time. But he wasn’t. In fact, she couldn’t see him at all. How could she have not noticed her brother had stopped talking? How long ago was that? He was like some dog she was obligated to watch and feed, and she had let go of his leash. The truth was, she realized, she was so into her own heartache, she completely ignored her brother’s.
Oh God, where is he?
Her heart banged inside and a tsunami of panic flooded her mind, obscuring her senses. She scanned the highway, back from where they had come, and saw something. She squinted at little dots that could be people by one of the stalled c
ars in the middle of the road. She didn’t even remember seeing that car, as she had passed more than a few stalled cars since walking away from theirs.
It was people. She was already hurrying in that direction.
One dot was smaller than the others. She hoped it was Travis.
She was running now, her body desperately trying to catch up with and pass her worries. If this dot wasn’t her ten-year-old brother, she didn’t know what she’d do.
She could see his cowboy hat, a Christmas gift from Daddy that he wore all the time. Travis was talking to an older couple and they were pointing her way.
Oh, thank you, God. It is him.
No longer galloping, she paced toward him. The strangers had stopped conversing and scrutinized her approach.
Only a couple of dozen feet away from him, she wanted to say something, but she couldn’t catch her breath and her vision swam with little pinpricks of light. Anger coursed through her, pushing aside her panic. If she had the physical lung capacity, she’d yell at her brother for stopping and for not telling her that he did.
But panic hadn’t fully released its clutches yet.
Who were these people? She wondered. And how had she not even noticed them or the car when she had clattered by a few minutes ago?
The woman had her arm around Travis, bringing fits to Lexi’s already unsettled stomach.
When drawing up to him, she did her best to immediately assess whether or not these old people were creepers, even though her emotions were battling for her sanity and she just wanted to run. If it were just her, she could run, but it was not so easy with the new responsibility of her brother.
When their mom was dying of cancer, she had drilled into Lexi the stranger-danger stuff, obviously preparing them for a life without her, and it stuck with her even now. She’d always been skeptical of people, no matter their age. And even though she didn’t have much of a relationship with her brother, she felt wholly uncomfortable seeing him with these strangers.
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