by AJ Powers
Megan had dinner ready at the usual time, and Charlie quickly ate his portion. His body was yearning for more, but he didn’t ask. He had gotten accustomed to the portion sizes Megan would dish out, but he had been burning significantly more calories the past few days than he had before. And with food as lean as it was, Megan had served even less than usual.
While Megan was going through the bedtime routine with the children, Charlie did a security check making a dreaded trip to the garage to ensure everything was locked and secure. It was a good thing, too; he had forgotten to put the wedge behind the door in the garage after Clay left. He was to remove it again in two weeks so Clay could get back in.
Back upstairs, Megan had finished reading and praying with the kids and was headed to bed herself. It had been a long day for her too. Charlie retired to his room as well and lay down in bed. He tried to sleep, but it didn’t take. Though he was physically tired, his mind was reeling. He pulled out his journal and continued writing his book. He hoped to finish it by spring so he could take it to Vlad’s with Clay to sell in his store.
“I saw him running this way!” a young man carrying a rifle said as he pointed down the road.
They had taken the bait. Clay had just been running in the direction the man was pointing, but he had double backed and was now hiding in a flanking position. He had no intention of ambushing them, though. Having already burned through a mag and a half laying down some covering fire just to get on the run, he didn’t have the ammo to waste on an ambush. Clay also preferred avoiding a bloody gunfight that he would almost certainly come out on the losing end. He had almost died—twice—crossing Devil’s Canyon, and he wasn’t about to become victim to a bunch of boys playing commandos with real guns.
The man ran down the road, and six others followed him. After a few minutes passed, Clay slowly lifted the dumpster lid, made sure it was all clear, then pulled himself out. The alley was dark, nearly impossible to see from one side to the other. He took his time moving to the other end, being careful to avoid cans and bottles that pockmarked the asphalt like urban landmines.
He stepped out of the alley and started to cross the street when he heard the unmistakable sound of a Kalashnikov bolt being yanked back. He stopped dead in his tracks, then was illuminated by a flashlight.
“Hands in the air. Turn around!” the man ordered, though his voice nearly cracked in the process.
Clay complied and slowly turned to face two men. He was blinded by the flashlights, but he could barely make out that one of them was holding an AK47, the other holding a pistol. It was hard to see, but it was obvious neither one was old enough to smoke, perhaps even to drive a car.
“We should just kill him!” the one with the rifle said.
The other one overruled the idea. “What are you talking about? Anderson wants all intruders arrested and brought to him to be tried and executed,” he said, as if there could be no other verdict than guilty.
“Dude,” the one with the rifle said, “you’re all about the rules, aren’t you? It’d be so easy to tell everyone he pulled on us, and we had to put him down.”
The one holding the pistol looked over, “And that’s why Guthrie promoted me instead of you. Now go get Sergeant Phillips and the others. I don’t have any zip ties on me, and Anderson would have a fit if we brought this clown in without shackles.”
The man with the rifle grunted, clearly displeased with being given orders by someone his own age, if not younger. He took off down the street in a hurry to catch up with the others.
“Now,” he said returning his attention to Clay, “you need to slowly put your rifle on the ground and kick it over to me.”
Clay reached for the plastic clasp on the sling and squeezed both sides causing the lower half of the strap to disconnect. The rifle smacked onto the ground with a loud clatter. Clay begrudgingly kicked it over to him.
The man took small steps over to Clay, keeping the pistol aimed at him and his finger on the trigger. “Any sudden moves and I shoot, got it?”
He started to reach for Clay’s holster, but before he could seize the side arm, Clay grabbed the man’s pistol and shoved it to the side. The man pulled the trigger, releasing a deafening bang that filled the otherwise silent streets. Clay’s grip on the slide prevented the action from cycling the next round, rendering the semi-auto pistol inoperable until the jam was cleared.
Clay punched the man in the stomach before shoving him backwards. The young soldier raised his arm to shoot the gun unaware of the jam.
*Click.*
By the time he realized what had happened, Clay’s pistol was aimed right at his head.
The man dropped his gun and put his hands up. “Please, don’t kill me.” His voice trembled with fear.
Clay heard shouting in the distance; he had to move quickly. After having the guard turn around, he knocked him out with a good shot to the back of the head using the handle of his Sig Sauer. The man fell to the ground without protest. Clay picked up his M4 and sprinted down the street away from the militia.
Running as fast as his legs would allow, Clay reached the end of the neighborhood in just a few minutes. He went around to the back of a nearby house, finding an unlocked door. He kept his flashlight off and moved stealthily through the first floor eventually making his way upstairs. It was an older house, likely built sometime during the Second World War, and each stair creaked and groaned from Clay’s weight. He got to the top of the steps and cleared each of the rooms, determining that no one had lived there in quite some time.
Towards the end of the hallway, he saw the pull string for the attic. Pulling the ladder down was a much louder event than he would have liked, but it would be the safest place to hole up for the night. He climbed up the ladder and pulled the trap door shut.
Clay finally turned on his flashlight, illuminating the area. The musty loft was filled with boxes and other common attic fodder from the pre-eruption days. Clay was surprised to see that the attic was full of items that had some decent trade value. Clay recalled just how clean and pristine the house was, given that it appeared to have been abandoned for quite some time. The house hadn’t been looted; none of the other houses on the street looked as if they had been, either. The area must have been well defended from day one, which explained the men’s hostility towards Clay just for passing through. Most places didn’t take too kindly to outsiders, but they usually didn’t respond so aggressively, either.
As the night carried on, Clay gradually relaxed, and things in the neighborhood quieted down. He hadn’t heard any activity outside in at least an hour, and figured the search party had finally been called off. He guessed that the people looking for him concluded that he was long gone when all the while he was going to be sleeping behind enemy lines for the night.
He started to go through some of the boxes in the attic, mostly finding keepsakes and family mementos. He hit the jackpot when he opened a box that had some clothing and, best of all, a relatively nice pair of hiking boots. They were a half size too big and fairly worn, but there were no holes in them and they claimed to be waterproof. Clay happily removed his old boots and laced up the new ones over a fresh pair of socks. What a difference that made to his morale.
He poked around a little bit more and discovered a box full of books. Most of the books were of no interest to him, but there was one that stood out as being very valuable. He blew the dust off of it and read the title: The Survival Medicine Handbook by Joseph Alton, M.D. and Amy Alton, A.R.N.P. He scanned through some of the chapters and saw that the book was packed with a mountain of good information and written specifically for scenarios when there was no functioning hospital nearby. Clay was amazed at what a good find that turned out to be and couldn’t wait to give it to Megan when he got back home. She’d probably read through it at least three times before the end of winter.
He went through the rest of the boxes, but didn’t find much else that he was willing to sacrifice the limited space in his backpack for.
He did, however, find a hooded sweatshirt that he put on right away.
Exhausted, he found a couple of old blankets and created a makeshift bed. It was bitterly cold in the poorly insulated attic, but a fire would have been deadly in more ways than one. He created a small tent out of some sheets and strands of Christmas lights he tied to the rafters. It wasn’t much, but it helped keep some of his body heat in. He piled on as many blankets and clothing he could find and then climbed into the sleeping bag.
He woke the next morning chilled, but not nearly as cold as he thought he would be. The extra warmth from the sweatshirt and the thermal sleeping bag made a big difference.
He stretched and yawned. A plume of visible breath erupted from his mouth as he exhaled. He fumbled around to find his flashlight and then sipped on some water. He could see faint shafts of light pouring through various holes in the roof. It was still pretty early, so he quickly packed up and made his way down from the attic. After a quick search of the house, he left.
The patrolling guards were no slouches, but they were not on the same heightened state of alert as they were a few hours before. Through some patience and cautious movement, Clay was able to escape the town’s boundaries without detection.
A few miles away, he ducked into a small pharmacy to get his bearings and noted on his map the town he had just left. He outlined the approximate boundaries and wrote inside “Devil’s Den” since it was the first town he discovered after crossing Devil’s Canyon.
While in the pharmacy, he looked around for anything useful. As expected, there was nothing except garbage caked beneath layers of dirt and mud. Pharmacies and gun stores were the hardest hit and always the most thoroughly picked through. Clay occasionally found something good, but they were usually a bust. He did, however, find some packets of red pepper and parmesan cheese at the pizza parlor next door. Those would add a nice—and much needed—flavor to some of Megan’s dishes.
As he left the pizza parlor, the flurries begin to fall.
Chapter 17
Charlie stood in the front conference room—which was his quarters for the duration of Clay’s absence—and stared out the window. The snow was heavy and visibility worsened by the hour. When he woke up, he could just barely see the freeway right outside his window, and now he couldn’t even see the parking lot at the bottom of the building. It was a whiteout in every sense of the word; bad even compared to more recent winters.
“Charlie,” Megan popped her head in through the door, “lunch is ready.”
Charlie acknowledged her and then looked back out the window. Standing there, with his rifle over his shoulder and a solemn look on his face, he saw a faint reflection of himself in the window. Even he could see that he had physically matured in the last few months. He wondered what kids his age did before the eruptions. He could just barely remember playing a hand-held game system that his mom had given to him for his fifth birthday. He remembered enjoying it but couldn’t recall a single specific memory about the times he played it.
Charlie watched as the wind whipped the snow in every direction. As the drafts shifted, he could hear the snow and sleet smack into the window like particles of dirt hitting a windshield. The howling wind intensified with every gust, giving him chills from the eerie noise it produced. He was grateful to be out of the storm, safe and relatively warm in the shelter of the 16 story office building. But he couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt that he stood inside while Clay was somewhere in the blizzard. The storm came in from the west, but there was no doubt Clay was starting to feel the impacts already.
The sounds of hungry children scurrying to the lunch room snapped Charlie from the ominous trance of the blowing wind. He said a quick prayer for his friend and mentor before joining his family for lunch. The mealtime noise was a deafening myriad of conversations mixed with chomping and slurping that drowned out coherent thoughts.
Suddenly—CRASH!
The happy family banter was hushed by the loud crashing sound that had come from down the hall. Charlie leapt to his feet and darted across the room. By the time he had reached the door, he had his M1 chambered and the stock pressed firmly into his shoulder. Megan placed herself between the door and the children, her pistol tightly gripped in her hand.
“Stay here,” Charlie commanded as he left the room.
He managed to sound calm and collected to Megan and the others, but his chest was thumping, and his muscles were tensed to the point of pain. As the adrenaline kicked in, he no longer noticed the muscle tension, but the pounding in his heart worsened as he approached the source of the sound. It sounded as if it had come from the arts and crafts room. He had his back against the wall and side-stepped the final few feet to the door. He got right up next to the door and rested his finger on the wood frame of the rifle just above the trigger. He swallowed heavily and spun around the corner only to be greeted by an arctic blast of air.
The floor-to-ceiling windows along the outer wall were the source of the sound. The center window had shattered. Charlie couldn’t tell if something had hit it or if it had just become so weak over the years that the wind itself caused the destruction.
The window was tempered glass and was still in place, but it would only hold out for so long before the whole thing would come down. Content there wasn’t an active threat to the family, Charlie fell back into the wall, and became mesmerized by the fractal pattern in front of him. Soon after, the adrenaline wore off, and he became shaky. He slid his back down the wall and sat for a few minutes.
“Charlie?” Megan said as she peeked through the door.
Charlie jumped.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare—Oh my goodness!” she said. “What happened?”
Charlie shrugged, “I guess the wind broke it.”
The damaged window, held together by film on either side of the pane, was waving in the wind like a crystal flag. The room was no longer safe for the children to play in, and they both agreed they had to move the arts and crafts room elsewhere. There were plenty of vacant rooms, but none with lighting quite as nice as that windowed room.
Megan went back to the kids to explain what had happened while Charlie moved all of the supplies into a room on the other side of the building closer to the children’s bedroom. Once he had everything out of the old room, he closed and locked the door and used some duct tape and towels to seal the cracks around the door. The draft was negligible, and for the time being, the towels seemed to be working.
With two winters’ worth of tasks to do, Charlie tackled the chore list for the day, which included repairing the busted solar panels. Again. He bundled up as if he were going on a long-term expedition in Antarctica.
Despite the added layers, the vicious wind pierced through his clothing with little effort. The snow pelted the exposed parts of his face like thousands of tiny bullets, stinging without mercy. He fought against the fierce wind and made his way to the panels. Struggling for his balance, he leaned unnaturally far forward to keep from being blown backwards.
Due to the delicate nature of the task, Charlie removed his gloves so he could utilize the agility of his naked fingers. In the frigid temperatures, he only had a few minutes of precise dexterity before his fingers became too numb to even grip his tools effectively. He made sure he had all the tools and equipment he needed, then stuffed his gloves into his pocket and began to work feverishly on the repair.
Charlie was able to repair the panel, but once he put his gloves back on, he started to feel the painful effects the cold caused had while his skin was exposed. He started to make his way back to the door and noticed the greenhouse, which had been tied down for the winter with tarps and bungee cords, was not secured. One of the cords had come unhooked and was flailing about like an unmanned fire hose. Charlie changed his course and headed for the greenhouse.
It took several attempts before Charlie was able to wrangle the cord in. He stretched the cord down to one of the eyehooks Clay had screwed into the roof top. He took a step b
ack to look for any other areas that might need to be addressed when he heard a loud cracking sound.
The cord had snapped, and the corner of the tarp was once again flapping in the wind. With no spare cords on the roof, he went back inside and headed for the tool room just across from the armory. He was walking down the hall when Megan rounded the corner.
Her eyes were wide, “Charlie!” she screamed, “What happened?” she asked while she ran over to him.
Charlie was confused. What on earth was she talking about? He looked down and noticed the blood all over his jacket.
Megan took off his scarf and ski hat and began to assess the wound. As Charlie’s face warmed up, he felt the effects of the injury. The pain was most intense just to the right of his right eye. Megan took the scarf and put it on the wound and walked him down to the infirmary, which was a spacious private bathroom off one of the executive conference rooms.
She got some water and carefully poured it on Charlie’s face then dabbed at the blood that was still leaking out.
“This is pretty deep,” she said with concern. “It’s going to need stitches.”
Charlie played down the severity of the injury to Megan, but inside he was terrified. Surprisingly, he had never needed stitches before. He had no idea what to expect.
Megan fished around the cabinets for some sutures. Sterile sutures were few and far between, but they still had a few left that Clay had found at an urgent care shortly after the lights went out. Most of the time they just used butterfly stitches, which were easier to find. Scars were never a concern, but Charlie’s gash was too deep for her to feel comfortable just closing it with some tape, especially since it was reluctant to stop bleeding long enough to let the adhesive bond with the skin.
“Charlie, this is going to hurt…a lot.”
Charlie looked at her and nodded, as if to tell her to get it over with. She wiped the gash with some rubbing alcohol on a cotton swab. He winced and grunted deeply. They had long since run out of lidocaine, so some ice was all the numbing he would get. She had him hold it up to his skin while she prepared the sutures.