The Path of Ashes [Omnibus Edition]

by Parker, Brian

  He started to step away from her, then decided against it. What was the point in creating a rift in their new group? He didn’t trust her at all, but he couldn’t leave her and Julie to starve to death here on their own. She would continue to be a prostitute and probably drag Julie into it as well, if she hadn’t already.

  “Go get some clothes on, Katie. You can’t walk around naked all the time.”

  Kate’s grip on his waist loosened slightly and once again for the sake of unity, he swallowed what he wanted to say. Instead, he said, “The ash that’s falling from the sky is radioactive. You need to keep your exposed skin to a minimum.”

  That seemed to put her unease to rest and she gripped him tightly once again. “Okay, I’ll go get some clothes.” She reached up and pulled his head down, kissing him on the cheek.

  When she’d gone upstairs, he went to the carts and got two cans of chili and an unopened package of flour tortillas. They needed to eat the tortillas anyways because they were going to begin molding soon. His mom put the feast into a pan and took it to the fireplace.

  Tyler walked over to where he stood watching his mother prepare the food. “I don’t know about your friend Kate,” he whispered.

  “She’s not my friend,” Aeric answered. “She used to be my girlfriend—since middle school—but we broke up our senior year and she turned the entire school against me. She’s got a major vindictive streak in her, so it’s better if you don’t get on her bad side.”

  “What, like killing her pimps?”

  “Yeah, something like that,” Aeric chuckled. “Although, hopefully, that was a ‘friendship’ of convenience, and not something else.”

  “Watch your back around her. The way she switched from what seemed like hatred to all super-lovey and mushy… That girl is a user, bro.”

  “Yeah, I know. I just don’t know what to do about it.”

  “I can arrange an accident.”

  Aeric looked at his friend in horror. It was one thing to kill people in self-defense or in defense of others, but Tyler was offering to kill Kate as a matter of convenience. Was that what happened when you killed people? Was it true that the more often you did it, the easier murder became and you could justify reasons for it?

  “Uh, no. We’ll just keep an eye on her. There’s no reason to kill her.”

  “Okay, you’re right. I want you to know that the option is there. I can get rid of her.”

  “Noted,” Aeric replied. “We need to find some bikes for them, though.”

  “We should ask your girlfriend if she’s seen any on her trips.”

  Neither of them noticed Kate come down the stairs and she squealed, “Girlfriend? Oh, Aeric, I knew you still loved me! What we had doesn’t just go away over some stupid misunderstanding.”

  Aeric rolled his eyes towards Tyler when she wrapped him in a hug from behind. “Hi, Katie.”

  “Oh, I missed you so much,” she said with a squeeze.

  The rest of the day passed quickly as Tyler and Aeric helped the girls pack clothing into various bags that could be secured to bicycles. Katie stuck to Aeric like a mushroom growing on a tree stump and on several occasions she’d made it known to him that she would satisfy every sexual desire that he’d ever had as long as he kept her and Julie safe.

  Aeric couldn’t get over how much she’d changed. The last time that he’d seen her was right before graduation in June. It was November now, only a little over a month since the war, and she’d been almost completely transformed. True, it was likely all an act to keep herself alive, but it was definitely strange to have her hovering around him.

  He hoped he wasn’t dooming their small group by telling Tyler that he could handle her. She was an opportunist, but she wouldn’t outright betray them if a better opportunity came along, would she?

  *****

  As night descended, the girls made quite a fuss about ensuring that everything was locked tight and all the lights were extinguished. They told them about the criminals who came at night, the rapists, murderers and slavers, who were attracted to places with light. The men who’d moved into the Gaines house uninvited had been mean and taken their own liberties with the two older women, but at least they’d kept them alive and defended them against the worst of the sadists that roamed the streets at night.

  Tyler and Aeric weren’t deterred by their stories. They needed to go find bikes for the girls. They wouldn’t be able stay together if everyone wasn’t mounted and the speed that bicycles offered them greatly outweighed the dangers of them going out into the city to get the bikes tonight.

  Tyler watched as Beth Gaines grasped her son tightly and held him for a full minute before letting him go. “We can go to find some bicycles tomorrow morning and then leave. I’ve lost your father and I thought you were dead. I don’t want to lose you again.”

  Aeric placed both of his hands on her shoulders and looked down into her eyes. “Mom, we’ve survived on our own, in and out of cities, all the way from Texas. Me and Ty are more than capable of taking care of ourselves. I promise.”

  She nodded her head and allowed Kate to say her goodbyes as well. Tyler rolled his eyes as Aeric suffered through her attentions and then went through the motions of appeasing her. Their small group definitely didn’t need to be fractured from the very beginning. Tyler thought that it would come to a head soon enough. For now, though, Kate was going to stick around.

  Their plan was to travel by foot to the campus of Drury University, ten blocks away, with their bolt cutters. There should be plenty of bicycles at the university. They’d find three that were suitable to their needs and steal them. As an added bonus, Central High School was on the way, so if there were any smaller bicycles there for Julie, they’d grab one of those.

  The idea of stealing bikes would have horrified Tyler only a little while ago, but now? It was simply how things were done. They didn’t have to take them, they could barter for them tomorrow somewhere. What was the point of giving up their precious supplies to someone who’d likely be dead within a few weeks, he’d argued with himself. They had a place to go, away from Springfield, instead of staying here in the city waiting for the government to rescue them or for some other savior who wouldn’t appear.

  They left one of their pistols with Aeric’s mom and went out the back door, so they wouldn’t be observed from the street, and headed west towards his old high school. Aeric said that he’d walked Nichols Street hundreds, maybe thousands, of times over the years and knew every house along the route. They used those houses and buildings as cover to move from shadow to shadow down the street.

  Twice they saw people breaking into homes and both times they had to turn away. They didn’t need to get involved, they had a mission to do and distractions would only derail their plans. It was a moral dilemma for them. They couldn’t save everyone, and at some point, their interference would get them killed. There were three women who were relying on them to keep them safe. The people in that house would need to fend for themselves.

  Tyler was worried about their footprints in the ash leading someone out looking for victims back to the Gaines house. The wind constantly whipped the ash into swirling clouds that covered tracks within a few hours, however, it was plainly obvious when someone had been out recently and their tracks led directly to the back door. Scavengers out looking for an easy score would go someplace where the occupants were out scavenging themselves. The old adage about no honor among thieves applied today more than ever, as people didn’t possess the means to feed themselves yet. Those who survived the coming winter would be much more prepared and hardened to face life in the new world.

  There was nothing that could be done about the footprints, so they pressed on. They’d given Beth a pistol and she knew how to use it. The women had survived on their own for the last month and like everyone else, they’d have to defend themselves for the next few hours if anything happened.

  It turned out that they didn’t even have to go all the way to the university
. There were a lot of bikes in the bicycle racks at the school. The nukes had hit during class, so the administrators likely hadn’t released the kids until their parents walked to the school and picked them up. Which meant that a lot of the bikes were abandoned at the school. They found two full-sized mountain bikes and a smaller bike that would be perfect for Julie on the same rack. Their bolt cutters made quick work of the bicycle chains and they were on their way back in minutes.

  The bikes made it impossible to hop from shadow to shadow as they’d done on the outbound trip. Their return route took them in front of one of the houses that they’d saw the predators enter only a few minutes before. A woman’s screams drifted from the gaping front entrance and Tyler couldn’t stand it. “I’m going in, man. It killed me to walk by the first time. You’ve got the bikes, take them back and I’ll meet up with you.”

  Aeric shook his head, “No way. We’re a team, we stick together.”

  Tyler began to protest, but the look Aeric shot him through the respirator’s face shield quieted him. “Thanks. I’m glad that I’ve got you to watch my back, Aeric.”

  He waved his hand, “Eh, stop with the mushy shit. Let’s go put those fuckers in their grave.”

  They set the bikes quietly against the dying bushes and crept up the steps to the house. Tyler pulled his baseball bat from the modified arrow quiver on his back and Aeric pulled the large hunting knife from the sheath on his belt. They’d try to do this quietly without drawing any more attention to themselves, but both of them had their guns in case they couldn’t keep it quiet.

  They stood on either side of the doorway listening as the cries of a child mingled with the woman’s pleas for help from upstairs. It drove both of them crazy to allow her to continue screaming from the upper level, but it was the smart thing to do. They needed to ensure that the lower level was clear before they went upstairs. They wouldn’t be able to help anyone if they were hit from behind while they were trying to sneak upstairs.

  The first floor was remarkably similar to Aeric’s own house. It looked like the family had been breaking their furniture to burn in the fireplace and mattresses lay in a semi-circle around the hearth here as well. On one of the mattresses, the body of a man slowly oozed blood from multiple stab wounds, including both of his eyes. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  A loud curse and then an audible slap echoed down the stairwell followed by something small hitting a wall. The child stopped crying while the woman’s screams took on an intensity that told Tyler that the child had probably died in view of its mother. Cruel laughter and mocking voices drifted through the house and his hatred of the people upstairs grew.

  They cleared the bottom floor quickly without any incident and went up the stairs as softly as possible. The rough slapping of skin against skin as they raped the woman disguised the creaking of the old wooden stairs as they gained the landing. The bedroom door where all the noise came from stood ajar, so they went in the opposite direction to make sure the entire floor was clear except for whatever was in that room.

  By the time they’d finished the other two rooms and the shared bathroom, the woman had stopped crying. They could hear muted whimpers of pain, but the outright screams of terror that had brought them into the house initially had ceased. Both of the men readied their weapons and crept to the door. It looked like there were two men inside, one standing with his pants around his ankles stroking his erection, while his partner plunged into the woman on the bed.

  Tyler indicated that he’d hit the one standing up and that Aeric should stab the rapist. He nodded once and then they rushed into the room. The baseball bat crunched into the side of the stroker’s head as he turned to see what the noise was.

  Aeric had a little farther to travel and realized too late that the man on the bed had been holding a pistol up to the woman’s head. He stopped mid-thrust and tried to bring it around, but Aeric’s knife plunged into the back of his neck. The pistol exploded, lighting the room like electricity for an instant and destroyed their night vision.

  Tyler’s eyes had never fully healed from the flash burn and the bright light caused him to go completely blind for a moment. He could hear Aeric struggling with the man and fuzzy shapes began to form on the bed. He saw a head pulled backwards and then an arm raise. There was a gurgling sound and both men collapsed. “Aeric!” Tyler yelled in a near panic.

  “I’m okay, buddy,” his friend moaned.

  At his feet, the stroker’s legs began to kick as he started to come to. Tyler stepped back and brought the bat crashing down into his face. He flinched as blood splattered against his exposed neck. Thankfully the respirator’s face shield had stopped it from getting into his eyes. He smashed the bat two more times until the man’s legs stopped moving. Then it was over.

  “My…my, baby!” the woman cried weakly.

  “Aww shit. She got shot, bro,” Aeric said from over near the bed. They’d fucked up their rescue attempt.

  “How bad?” Tyler inquired.

  “Is my baby…” the mother’s voice drifted into oblivion.

  His vision was still blurry and he saw Aeric place his fingers against her neck. “Pretty bad,” he answered. “She’s dead.”

  Tyler used the sheets to wipe off his mask and neck. Then he cleaned the bat and put it back into the sheath on his back. “Well, two more rapists are off the street.”

  “You don’t think we fucked up this rescue attempt?” Aeric asked.

  “It wasn’t about a rescue. These people were dead anyways. They were barely surviving the first part of this winter. It’s going to get worse and they wouldn’t have lasted much longer. This was about destroying evil.”

  Tyler could tell that his friend contemplated his words. Had he truly not cared about the family? Was that what he’d become? He was losing his humanity. The callous nature of his response proved it. His heart, once so big and open to love, was shriveling inside his chest, dying a little more each day in this world. He needed something to look forward to, a reason to keep going, otherwise, he was just as bad as the rest of these people. He needed a miracle.

  *****

  Aeric considered the meaning behind Tyler’s words. It made sense to him that they couldn’t always be the rescuer. People had to look out for themselves. The only thing that they could try to do was the right thing, in this case it was to kill those two raping, murderous motherfuckers.

  “Alright, then scratch two more assholes,” he replied with a shrug. “Let’s go check their pantry and take what we can get. With all those extra mouths to feed, we need everything we can get and these people don’t need it anymore.”

  “Yeah, about your girlfriend,” Tyler sighed.” She’s gonna fuck us, you know that, right?”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Aeric answered. “What can we do?”

  “We could leave her, or refuse to share our food. That would make her go away.”

  Aeric considered it for a moment. “I can’t do that to her, man. She played some bullshit high school games with me, but she hasn’t done anything worth being condemned to die.”

  “Alright, then she comes with us and we keep an eye on her.”

  “I know it sucks and I’m probably gonna regret it, but—”

  The whimpering of a small child cut him off. Across the room, the toddler sat up from the heap it had lain in, surprising them. Both had thought that it was dead.

  “Mommy!” the little girl screamed.

  “Fuck—uh, I mean, darn!” Aeric muttered.

  Tyler rushed across the room and picked up the squirming girl. She screamed at him and he tried to soothe her. “Shh, we’re not gonna hurt you. What’s your name?”

  She continued screaming and tried to pull away from him, so he pulled his mask off and smiled at her. She kept crying, but he didn’t seem to terrify her anymore. He bounced her slightly against his hip and Aeric wondered where the gentle giant in front of him and come from. “There, is that better? You’re okay, we’re nice. We’re the good
guys, like police officers. We stop bad people, honey. It’s okay. What’s your name?

  She crammed her hand in her mouth and mumbled something that sounded like “Ketchup” to Aeric.

  “She’s got a large bruise on her face where those animals hit her. I don’t think she has any broken bones,” Tyler remarked with a quick glance towards Aeric.

  “Mommy!” Ketchup screamed and tried to claw her way out of Tyler’s arms to the bed where her mother’s body lay.

  “I’m taking her downstairs,” Tyler said. “She doesn’t need to be around any of this. See if you can find any backpacks or anything to carry some of her clothes and—”

  “Whoa!” Aeric said with his hands up. “We can’t keep her! We don’t know how to take care of a baby.”

  “Not your decision, man. I’m making this one, she goes with us,” Tyler said as he pushed past Aeric towards the stairs. “Our goal was to destroy evil in this world, not create more by abandoning a child to starve to death.”

  Aeric stared at the man’s back as he whispered softly to the little girl while he walked down the stairs. “Fuck,” he muttered and began rifling through the pockets of the men they’d killed. Besides the pistol, which went into his waistband, they didn’t have anything of value. He found a large duffle bag in the master bedroom closet and went down the hall to the little girl’s room.

  The name ‘Kayla’ was painted on the wall and Aeric grabbed a bunch of warm clothes out of the closet. There were probably more downstairs where they’d been living so they’d grab those too. As he started to go, he noticed a large stack of diapers and baby wipes on the dresser.

  He sighed audibly and crammed those into the bag as well.

  *****

  Aeric’s mom was ecstatic about baby Ketchup, as Aeric called her. Beth thought that Kayla was about two years old, which meant she would be able to eat solid foods. Not needing to find formula or even jars of baby food was a major plus, although Aeric was more than a little concerned about the group adopting a child.