The day after: An apocalyptic morning

by Jessy Cruise

  "Are you ready for this?" Anna asked Jean at 1:00 AM. She had just crept into the other woman's bedroom after putting on her warmest, thickest clothing. "We could still back out you know."

  "No," Jean said, touching her hand in the darkness. She was dressed in two layers of her warmest clothes as well. "Let's get the hell out of this place. It's time."

  Slowly they eased out of the room and out into the hallway. It was pitch black in the house and they moved slowly, operating primarily by feel, until they got to the linen closet. Slowly they removed four of the thickest blankets in there and rolled them up into two tight bundles. They moved to the kitchen next and removed two of the large, plastic garbage bags from a drawer. As quietly as possible, they stuffed the blanket rolls into the garbage bags and secured them into bundles by using twine that they had stolen from the supply room and hidden in the back of the drawer. They now had watertight packs for their blankets and their food when and if they recovered it.

  Holding hands they walked slowly out of the kitchen, down a hallway, and into the living room. As in Garden Hill the daily laundry was hung and drying in this room and they had to duck under it in order to get to the front door. They both pulled their rain jackets down from the hooks by the door and put them on, buttoning them up and then pulling the hoods tightly over their heads. Two more steps brought them to the front door.

  "This is it," Anna said softly. "Open that door and there's no turning back."

  "Open it," Jean said without hesitation.

  Just as her hand reached out to grasp the handle, there was a click next to them and suddenly, shockingly, they were being illuminated by the beam of a flashlight from less than five feet away.

  "Going somewhere, girls?" Kelly, the holder of the light, asked them.

  Jean was paralyzed with fear, unable to talk, unable to move.

  Anna jumped in fright but quickly recovered, willing herself not to panic. "Kelly," she said slowly, her mind whizzing as she weighed their options. "You scared me half to death."

  "I thought I heard someone creeping around out here," Kelly said with feigned sweetness. "It looks like my little co-wives were thinking about trying a little escape."

  "Escape," Anna said, as if that was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. "Don't be silly. We were just... uh..." She could think of nothing else to say. After all, it was perfectly obvious what they were doing.

  "Come with me," Kelly told them. "Let's go wake up husband dear and see what he thinks about all of this. I don't imagine he'll be very happy with you two."

  "Listen, Kelly," Anna said pleadingly. "Can't you just..."

  "No, I don't think he'll be happy at all," Kelly went on. "In fact, it might just be that the two of you will be hanging from a rope by breakfast tomorrow. And then I'll have him all to myself."

  "Kelly," Anna said. "If we get away from here, you'll still have him all to yourself."

  "Yes," she said, "but then he'll blame me for letting you get away. He may even suspect that I helped you. Oh no, I'm not playing that game. Now shall we go upstairs peacefully or shall I start screaming for him now? It doesn't really Micker to me."

  Anna started to tense up. They were trapped. What was there to do? Her mind screamed at her just to run out the door, dragging Jean by the hand, and to hide out in the town somewhere until they had a chance to slip out later. It was a ridiculous plan - one that almost surely would fail - but what else was there to do?

  Jean kept her from implementing it. Her initial panic had subsided, allowing a cooler, more calculating part of her mind to take over. In a low, quiet voice, she said: "All right, we're caught. Let's go face the music."

  Anna looked at her in disbelief.

  "Maybe he'll be lenient with us," Jean said softly. "Maybe he'll give us another chance. Let's throw ourselves on his mercy."

  "Oh I doubt he'll be lenient," Kelly said with delight. "But anything's possible, isn't it? Let's go." She gestured with the flashlight, waving it towards the stairs.

  "Jean," Anna said fearfully, knowing that if they went up those stairs they were dead women. Escape attempts by women, by anyone, was not tolerated.

  "We'll be okay, Anna," Jean said carefully, looking steadily at her lover. "Let's just follow Kelly upstairs and confess. Okay?"

  Something in Jean's tone convinced her. As Kelly turned towards the staircase and as Jean stepped towards her, Anna followed.

  It happened with shocking speed. Kelly made it three paces back towards the hallway before Jean, moving faster than Anna would have thought possible, was upon her. She grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head viciously backward, and then, before she had a chance to cry out, threw her arm around her neck and tightened it. The flashlight dropped from her hand with a small clatter and rolled a few feet.

  Jean, though not fat, was not small either. She was a solidly built woman of farm-girl proportions. Kelly, on the other hand, was a petite wisp of a girl, built more like a model than anything else. She kicked and twisted in Jean's grasp, she grabbed at her arms, she stomped on her feet, but she was unable to get free. Jean pushed on the choking arm with her free hand, tightening it even further, and, within a second or two, Kelly began to jerk spastically against her, her eyes rolling back in her head, her limbs flailing as if in seizure. And still Jean held onto her.

  Anna watched opened-mouthed as Kelly's struggles suddenly ceased, her body going limp in Jean's grasp. And still Jean held onto her, keeping the tension tight around her neck. "Jean," she whispered in horror, "what are you doing?"

  "I'm killing her," Jean said with surprising calmness. "If I let go of her now, she'll just wake up again in ten minutes or so."

  "Oh my God," Anna cried, starting to tremble. The reality of what was going on hitting her. "Killing her?"

  "She was going to have us killed," Jean replied. "I couldn't let that happen, Anna."

  "Oh my God," she said again.

  She held her for almost five minutes, maintaining the chokehold upon her. Finally she lowered her to the ground and let go. She leaned down and put her mouth near Kelly's ear, listening for respiration. "Nothing," she said blankly. She picked up her wrist and felt for a pulse. "Nothing," she repeated. "She's dead."

  "Jesus, Jean," Anna said, still standing in the same place. "How did you... I mean, why did you... I mean... oh God."

  Jean stood up, walking over to the flashlight and picking it up. "I grew up with an older brother," she said quietly. "I learned how to wrestle by the time I was four years old. I accidentally choked him out one time by grabbing him like that. My dad told me I should never grab anyone around the neck that way because it makes them pass out in a few seconds and if you do it long enough, you'll kill them." She took a few deep breaths, starting to feel the aftereffects of her actions now. "I guess Dad was right, huh?"

  "I guess he was," Anna agreed.

  "Now we really can't turn back," Jean said, starting to tremble.

  "No," Anna said. "I guess we can't. Let's get out of here."

  They listened for a moment, reasonably sure that Bracken had slept through the entire incident since he hadn't stormed down the stairway, but wanting to be sure. The reassuring rumble of his snores continued to drift downward towards them. He would have quite a surprise when he finally did wake up.

  Anna opened the door and stuck her head out, her eyes searching the rainy darkness outside. All of the surrounding houses were occupied, mostly by other high-ranking members of the militia and their wives, and she wanted to make sure that no one else just happened to be out and about. This was an unlikely possibility at this ungodly hour of the morning, but a possibility nevertheless. She saw nothing - no lights on, no faces in the windows (not that she could see the windows very well). "It looks clear," she whispered to Jean.

  Slowly, holding hands once again, they slipped out onto the porch and closed the door behind them. Stepping out into the rain, they walked down to the sidewalk and turned left, easing down the street. Three doors down was
a metal box sticking up from a lawn. This used to be a communal mailbox back in civilized days, the place where the twelve houses on this end of the street had sent and received their correspondence. Anna, the night before, had pried it open from the back with a screwdriver and placed a very special package inside for hiding.

  "Is it still there?" Jean asked nervously, knowing that without it, all hope was lost.

  "It's here," Anna said with relief as she pulled out the small Sony Camcorder and three spare batteries she had stolen from a locked supply room. They were wrapped in plastic to protect them from the rain and all were fully charged thanks to the power supply at the high school. Anna opened the package and turned on the camera, switching it to the night vision setting. "Let's get out of the open now."

  "Right."

  With Anna looking through the viewfinder, she was able to see a black and white view of the area directly in front of her. The range on the night vision was only about twenty feet but it was enough. Jean held onto the back of her rain jacket, staying as close as possible to her, allowing herself to be led blindly along. They started moving.

  They made their way out of the populated part of the town as quickly as possible, moving silently but speedily along the sidewalks. It was not the most direct way to the east side of the town, where they planned to make their egress, but they figured it was best to get away from the occupied dwellings. They passed through a derelict industrial section and a small commercial strip mall before making their way into a lower class residential neighborhood that no one had bothered taking up housekeeping in yet. Once, just near the end of this section, they had to hide behind an old dumpster when they saw the bobbing flashlights of the interior patrol making their rounds. The two-man team passed within thirty feet of them and continued down the street.

  "That was close," Jean whispered fearfully.

  "Too close," Anna agreed.

  They were forced to skirt the edge of a more populated area in order to access the freeway at the Foresthill onramp. They moved on the far side of the street during this stretch, noting in alarm that one of the houses was still lit from the inside. Why were they still awake in there? Would they step outside and spot the escapees? They did not, at least not as far as either woman could tell and five minutes later they were walking up the onramp to Interstate 80, Anna following along the white line in her viewfinder.

  At the top of the onramp, as they stood on the surface of the freeway itself, they paused, each taking a few uncomfortable breaths. They were now within sight line of the two guard posts that watched over that side of town, protected from view only by the darkness.

  "Here comes the hard part," Anna said.

  "Yeah," Jean agreed. "Let's get it over with."

  They walked slowly along the freeway, drawing ever closer to the guard positions with each step they took. Anna kept her eye glued to the viewfinder tightly, both to see where she was going and to keep the minute amount of light that leached out of the rubber gasket from giving them away. Jean, still holding tight to her friend's rain jacket, still completely blind in the darkness, followed along behind her, concentrating on each step that she made to keep from making any noise.

  Anna could not see the two guard hills through the night vision as they came up to the Bell Road offramp - they were well out of the range of her meager camera - but she could feel them, could sense them rising up directly in front of her. She felt so horribly exposed. Were they really going to walk directly below those four guards? Were they really going to try to navigate through the maze of sandbags and barbed wire that lay in front of those hills? Did they really think that this crazy plan had a chance in hell of succeeding? Had it not been for the fact that Kelly's dead body was lying in the living room back at Bracken's home, she would have aborted the escape attempt as too dangerous. But there was no choice now, was there? They had to give it a shot.

  With sweating palms, with a hammering heart, she pushed onward, Jean behind her. Soon they were passing into the chasm that the Interstate had created between the hills. The four guards were less than three hundred feet above them now. Both women slowed their pace to a near-crawl, knowing that it kept them in the danger zone longer but also knowing that gingerly, careful steps would help keep them from stumbling and making unintended noise. The guards up there were equipped with powerful spotlights hooked up to automotive batteries. Though they did not routinely sweep the area below them, they would surely light up the area if they heard a noise.

  At last they came out the other side of the hills and came to the entrance of the sandbag maze. The opening was four feet wide, a small gap between six-foot walls of sandbags, with rolls of razor wire stretching off in both directions to the side. Anna looked at it carefully, examining the ground for any sort of trip wires or other noise-making booby traps. She had never heard Bracken mention that such things were part of the defenses but she certainly was not going to rule it out. She saw nothing of the sort.

  "We're at the maze, Jean," she whispered as softly as she could, barely loud enough for Jean herself to hear. "Tighten up on me a little. Hold onto my shoulders with both hands and turn when I turn."

  "Okay," Jean whispered back.

  "And don't trip over my feet."

  "Okay."

  Anna eased forward, Jean holding onto her like a shadow. Slowly, moving at the speed of a snail, she entered the maze, staying as close to the center between the rows of sandbags as she could. The view through the camera was two-dimensional and it was a little difficult judging distance for this reason but by the time she reached the second turn, she was used to it. Step by step she walked forward, always cognizant of the guards directly above and behind her and what would become of them if they were discovered. She turned to the right, to the left, back to the right again, doubled back towards town for a few feet and then doubled back towards the east. In all there were more than twenty separate corners to navigate.

  At last, after what seemed an eternity but which was actually only twenty minutes, they came to the final turn. In the viewfinder Anna saw a stretch of Interstate stretching off into the darkness beyond her range. It was one of the finest things she'd ever seen before. She stopped for a moment in the last four feet, again looking carefully on the ground for any trip wires or other devices. Seeing nothing she started slowly forward. Six steps brought her through the barrier of the sandbags and razor wire and they were out. Though they were still within easy view of the guards above, and though they would still need to step quietly for quite some time, they were actually out of Auburn and on their way to freedom.

  Part 13

  It was thirty minutes before dark when Bracken reentered Barnes' office. The discovery of the death of Kelly and the apparent escape by Jean and Anna had taken place twelve hours before and Bracken had spent the day with a full platoon of soldiers trying to track his traitorous wives down so they could be hanged.

  "No sign at all huh?" Barnes asked as he looked at his wet and muddy and now wifeless subordinate. He had been following the results of the search on a radio set on his desk.

  "Nothing," Bracken confirmed. "We went all the way to the first mudfall to the east and saw nothing at all. Fourth platoon went all the way to the edge of the valley on the west and they saw nothing either. First and second platoons checked to the north and south, even though those are the least likely directions they might have gone, and again, nothing."

  "There's no way they could have made it more than a mile outside of town in the dark," Barnes said confidently. "Even if they did manage to get out somehow, they would have been forced to camp just outside the range of the guards' visual zone until sunrise. It would've been impossible for them to navigate or move in the darkness."

  "I agree, sir," Bracken said. "If they were out there, we would have seen them or picked up some sign of them. We have no evidence whatsoever that they even made it outside the perimeter. How could they even have made their way through any of our defenses in the dark? It's impossible."r />
  "So that leaves us with the conclusion that they are still in town somewhere," Barnes said.

  "That's right," Bracken told him. "They're probably hiding in one of the abandoned houses or in the industrial area. With your permission, I'll start a building to building search of the entire town at first light."

  "Permission granted. We'll probably find them by noon tomorrow at the latest. We'll hang them before dinner if that's the case."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Don't blame yourself for this, Bracken," Barnes told him reassuringly. "No one can tell when their bitches are going to do something stupid like this. They're secretive little cunts, the bitches, and they plot against us without our even knowing about it."

  "There must be some way to prevent that," Bracken said. "After all, we've got to maintain order in town."

  "We'll have to come down a little harder on them it would seem. I think that, starting with this escape, we should punish all of them for the offense."

  "Punish all of them?"

  "Yes," Barnes said, nodding as the thought grew more detailed in his mind. "We'll punish them all and try to make them realize that their actions affect more than just themselves. I will order tonight that every woman in town be beaten by their husbands for the offense committed by your wives. In addition to that, I will pull three names of women at random and order that they be hanged."

  Bracken raised his eyebrows a bit. "Hang three other bitches at random because of what my bitches did? I don't think the guys will like that too much if it's their bitch that gets picked."

  "I'm sorry the guys won't like it, but they'll just have to put up with it. We'll set the precedent right here and right now to all of the bitches just what the consequences are for trying to escape. It's harsh, but I think it's the only way we'll get these bitches to see that they are affecting more than themselves."