by Payne, T. L.
“Here. Pour the water into my cup,” Scott said and then handed the water to DeAndre.
Everyone watched the boy drink as they waited for the second bottle to thaw.
DeAndre handed Sheena the metal cup. “Here, Momma. You take a drink.”
“Are you finished, baby?” Sheena asked him.
He patted his stomach. “Yeah, my tummy is nice and full now.”
Eventually, everyone got a drink. Not as much as they needed, but enough to quench their terrible thirst.
“I wish we could drain the hot water heater. There’s at least fifty gallons of water in there,” Raine said.
Alicia’s eyes widened. “What? Fifty gallons?”
“At least. It’s in the corner of the breakroom. But it has to be frozen like everything else,” Raine said.
“There has to be a way to thaw it,” Alicia said.
Raine shrugged. “Not without a pretty big fire, I imagine.”
Raine glanced over to Scott. He was looking at the ceiling. Raine followed his gaze. “Is something up there?” she asked.
“No. I was just thinking. I bet there’s still water in the back of the toilets,” Scott said.
“Ew!” DeAndre said. “You’re gonna drink toilet water?”
Scott smiled. “Not from the bowl. From the back where it’s clean. At least cleaner. We can boil it.”
“But it will be frozen too,” Gage said.
“We can chip it out. It will take time, but what else are we doing right now,” Scott said.
Gage shrugged, holding his bandaged hands out.
“We should check to see if they have a first aid kit and change those bandages,” Raine said.
Gage frowned.
“We have to do it,” Raine said. “You too, Tom.” Tom hid his hands behind his back. “Stop being babies. Do you want them to get infected?”
“What happened?” JJ asked.
“Burns,” Tom said.
“We got caught in the flames,” Gage added.
“What flames?” Scott asked.
“Half the city burned after the blackout,” Tom said.
“Blizzard-type winds swept the flames from building to building. We had to run for our lives,” Raine said.
“It was awful,” Sheena said.
“It sounds awful,” JJ said.
“Raine and Lucy, if you’ll come with me, we can check out the toilet water situation and see if we can find these two fresh bandages,” Brandon said.
Raine stood and looked down at Scott and JJ. They looked nice enough and they’d shared their gear with them, but she was reluctant to leave them alone with her friends.
She thought about that as they left the loading bay and walked down the hall to the breakroom. Did she consider her traveling companions to be friends now? She’d known Sheena, Tom, Gage, and Antonio for at least six months, but until the EMP, she’d never considered them friends. Raine didn’t keep friends. She didn’t have time for them. She hadn’t really had a friend since her brother got sick. Back then, it was hard to maintain friendships when her family traveled back and forth to St. Jude’s so often for David’s treatments. The last time David’s cancer returned, her parents had homeschooled her so they could all be together in Memphis.
“I’ll try this bathroom,” Lucy said as she disappeared into the men’s room.
A second later, she reappeared wearing an ear-to-ear grin. “He was right. All the tanks still have water in them. It’s frozen, but we can get it out and boil it like Scott said.”
Raine looked down at the toilet. “How many gallons do you think is in there?”
“A couple of gallons, I bet,” Brandon said.
He pulled his knife and began chipping away at the ice inside the tank. “We need something to put this in.”
“Raine, come with me to the kitchen. I bet there’s a bowl or pan we can use,” Lucy said.
With two large bowls and one cooking pot filled with chunks of ice, the group had enough water for the day. Now that she knew where to look for more, Raine was feeling much better about their chances of survival. She’d lucked out and found a thigh-length brown parka hanging on a coat tree in one of the offices to replace her singed and torn coat. Now, if they could just find warmer clothes for everyone.
Raine had found a well-equipped medical kit. Gage’s burns seemed to be healing nicely, but Tom’s were deeper and angrier looking. The bandages had stuck to his oozing wounds, which made removing them painful. Tom took it better than Raine thought he would. After applying antibiotic ointment to all the open areas, Raine reapplied the dressing and gave him the strongest pain reliever in the medical kit—Tylenol.
Now that she was better hydrated, Raine’s thoughts went to finding food. They could go a few days without it, but their energy would be too low to hike miles in the snow to Alicia’s house, especially if they encountered some of the same unfriendly people they’d come across so far.
“We really need to find food. There has to be something left around here. That group couldn’t have taken it all,” Raine said.
“I don’t know. They’ve been working on it night and day since we got here,” JJ said. JJ glanced over at Scott. “What do you think?”
Scott was chewing on his bottom lip. “Last night, they said that they’d been pulled away from going through a fitness center. With the hunt for you guys, I bet there aren’t enough people for that job. We might be able to find something there.”
“What in the world would we find useful in a smelly gym?” Sheena asked.
“Energy bars and protein powder,” Scott said.
Raine looked at Brandon. “What do you think? Should we try both places tonight? We really need that food.”
“It’s risky, but I don’t see that we really have a choice. We can’t push on without food. It takes too much energy to stay warm and trudge through the snow. We’d never make it without fuel for our bodies,” Brandon said.
Scott nodded.
“JJ and I can go with you to the sport store. We know right where you need to go to find the things you need, then we can go check out the fitness center. We stand a better chance with four of us.”
To Raine’s surprise, Brandon didn’t protest. In fact, he was nodding as Scott spoke.
“We should see if Lucy will join us. She has a gun,” Raine said.
“Let's ask her then," Scott agreed.
They now had a plan for securing warm gear and food. If it all worked out, they could be outfitted and ready to go before first light. They could slip away under the cover of darkness and hopefully push all the way to Alicia’s by dark the next day.
Chapter 18
Langsford Industries Warehouse
Manchester, Missouri
February 21st
“Raine. Lucy,” Brandon whispered into the dark room.
Raine flicked on the small flashlight she’d found back in the glass repair shop. She pushed away the image of the man’s lifeless eyes and threw back the saddle blanket and packing foam she’d covered herself with. They’d moved to an interior room with a window for a quick getaway. The small room was warmer with all the body heat, but still likely just above freezing. That was how Raine felt. She imagined her blood would look like a cherry slushy. The cold made it hard to move quickly.
“Can you shine that over here? I need to find my shoes,” Lucy said.
Raine shined the flashlight on the floor as Lucy pulled on her boots. Not taking any chances, Raine had slept in hers. She didn’t want to get caught off guard and have to struggle to pull them on with bullets flying.
Raine and Lucy joined Brandon, Scott, and JJ in the breakroom.
“So, what’s the plan?” Lucy asked.
Everyone looked at each other.
“Here’s what I think,” Scott said. “Since JJ and I know the warehouse, we should keep it limited to there. Lucy, if you stand guard at the door into the store and Brandon watching the exit door, then Raine, JJ, and I can locate what we need, load
it up, and get it to the back door quicker.”
Brandon and Lucy looked at one another. Lucy shrugged.
“That sounds like a solid plan,” Brandon said.
“Do you know what you are looking for?” JJ asked. “If we have some idea before we go in there, we can know where to start gathering things.”
Brandon turned to Raine.
She raised an eyebrow.
"Well, for one, we need sleds. DeAndre and Antonio can’t walk very far or fast,” Raine said.
JJ smiled.
“I think I saw at least one. There could be another buried underneath it.”
“What else?” Scott asked.
“Warm gear, sleeping bags, mats, tarps, wool socks. Things like that,” Brandon said.
“There wasn’t much of that left. There might be thermal mats and tarps. There are quite a few tents left.”
“We should grab them all,” Raine said. "We can use the tent material to make wind proofing for our clothes and blankets.”
“Good idea,” JJ said.
Raine tried to imagine what useful things might be available in the sports store that others might not consider taking.
“What about skateboards? Did you see any of those?”
“Skateboard?” Scott asked.
“Yeah. I had an idea to remove the wheels and make snowshoes,” Raine said.
Although they didn’t roll their eyes at her suggestion, she could tell what they thought of her idea by their silence and the way they avoided looking at her.
“It’s just a thought,” she said.
“It’s good. Way to think out of the box,” Scott said. “Okay, so Brandon and Lucy will stand guard and the three of us will look for warm gear, sleds, and skateboards.”
“Is everyone ready?” JJ asked as she pulled the hood up on her jacket.
Raine nodded.
“Raine, would you mind shining that flashlight over here?” Brandon asked.
Brandon checked his pistol in the beam of her flashlight.
“How many rounds do you have?” Scott asked.
“Five,” Brandon said.
“Lucy?” Scott asked.
Lucy held her pistol out and dropped the magazine into her hand. She counted the rounds. “I have seven.”
“Better than none,” Scott said. “Let’s head to the warehouse.”
Raine flicked off her flashlight and Lucy followed Brandon, Scott, and JJ under the crack in the loading bay door. They’d tried to shut it earlier, but it squeaked too loudly.
The cold air took Raine’s breath away. It was so dark out she could barely see her own hand in front of her face. She followed the others by the sound of their boots crunching the snow, which was amazingly loud in the still of the night. If there was anyone guarding the sports store, they’d hear them long before seeing them. They had to cross at least one hundred feet before reaching the building.
As they made their way across the street, Raine scanned the parking lot in front of the store. She saw no flashlights heading their way. She looked for any place to hide if she saw anyone. Their only cover appeared to be one lone parked car. She wondered how much protection that would provide against bullets.
Moments later, they stood with their backs to the wall of the sports store. Scott peered around the corner of the building. He reached down, scooped a handful of snow, and rounded it into a snowball. Was he going to use that as a weapon? She imagined if the snow was packed tight enough and you hit the person just right, it might knock them down, but not much else.
Scott reared back and threw the snowball. Raine heard it hit something solid and metal. They waited. Raine wasn’t sure what for. Scott repeated the maneuver and threw a second snowball. This one louder than the first. They waited another minute. The only thing Raine heard was the sound of her comrades breathing.
“Follow me, but try to stay in my footprints,” Scott said as he disappeared around the corner of the building.
Raine wasn’t sure how she was supposed to stay in his footprints when she couldn’t see a foot in front of her face. She wanted to use her flashlight, but that would give them away if anyone was watching the back of the building.
They reached the back door, and Scott wrenched it open and hurried inside. A second later, he poked his head through the opening. “All clear.”
As the others filed inside, Scott said, “If you see or hear anyone, whistle.”
Raine didn’t like that idea at all. The bad guys would hear that and know immediately it was a human sound.
Scott flicked on his flashlight and led Lucy to the storeroom door.
“You can use your flashlight in here. There aren’t any windows,” JJ said as she turned hers on.
JJ and Raine turned left and headed toward a stack of pallets.
The plastic wrapping around them had been torn and cardboard littered the surrounding floor. It looked like someone was opening every box to check its contents. This stack contained children’s tents. Raine grabbed two.
“Are there larger ones somewhere?” Raine asked. The smaller tents would do in a pinch, but they needed as much yardage of the windproof material as they could carry.
“Yeah, over here.”
JJ moved two large, broken-down boxes to reveal a stack of four-man tents.
“Those are better,” Raine said, grabbing four of the boxes. “Do you know where the sleds might be?”
JJ shined her flashlight down another aisle.
“I think so. I’ll look around while you run these over by the door.”
After dropping the tents by the door, Raine headed in JJ’s direction.
“Did you find them, JJ?” Raine whispered.
A flashlight beam suddenly turned on and blinded her.
“JJ, can you lower that light? I can’t see.”
“Stop right there,” an unfamiliar voice said.
Raine raised her flashlight. In front of her stood a woman in her mid to late thirties. She was short with dirty blonde hair. Not JJ and definitely not Lucy. Though she did have a pistol like Lucy’s.
“Whoa. No need for the gun. We’ll just leave,” Raine said, raising her left hand into the air with her palm out. She tucked the hand holding the pipe wrench behind her back.
“Rob. Over here,” the woman yelled over her shoulder.
“Please,” Raine begged. Visions of sex traffickers flashed before her. She’d rather die than face that fate. Raine took a step sideways. “Please. Just let me go.”
“Rob,” the woman yelled louder. She looked as frightened as Raine felt.
“I can just leave. I’m no threat to you,” Raine said, taking another step toward the door.
“How many?” a tall, thin man asked as he ran up next to the woman.
“Just her, but she said ‘we.’ She has someone with her for sure.”
Where were the others? Why weren’t they doing something? Would they let her be taken? Raine was about to take off running when she saw a flashlight beam bouncing off the shelf beside her. Someone was coming up behind her.
Could that be Lucy with her gun? Please let it be Lucy.
“Put the gun down,” Lucy yelled. The flashlight beam stopped moving. Lucy sounded like she was behind and to Raine’s right. “I said, put the gun down.”
“You put your gun down or I’ll shoot her,” the woman said.
Raine stared at her wide-eyed. She shined the flashlight on the woman’s face. She wanted to see if she was serious. The woman threw her arm up to cover her eyes, and Lucy fired. The man grabbed the woman and dove for cover behind a pallet stacked high with dog beds. Raine dove into the aisle to her left.
“Raine? Are you hit?” Lucy yelled.
“No. I’m okay,” Raine said, trying to locate her pipe wrench under the shelf. She’d dropped it when she fell.
“Raine. Lucy,” Scott yelled from the end of the aisle.
“Over here. We have two. One has a gun,” Lucy said as he ran over to them.
“I got t
hem,” Brandon called out.
Raine took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her legs felt like wet noodles as Scott tried to help her to her feet. Her heart thrummed in her ears. She felt dizzy.
“Stay right here. I’m going to go help Brandon,” Scott said.
Lucy placed a hand on Raine’s back.
“It’s okay. Just steady yourself a minute.”
“You guys okay?” JJ asked as she rushed over to them.
“Yeah,” Lucy said.
“How many are there?” JJ asked.
“I only saw two,” Raine said.
“Scott,” JJ called.
“We should go,” Scott said.
“Wait,” JJ replied.
Raine followed Lucy and JJ to where Brandon was holding the man and woman at gunpoint.
“Are you part of that group staying in the grocery store and running around in the SUV?” Scott asked.
The man looked at the woman then stared back up at Scott.
“Answer him,” Lucy said, stepping on the man’s ankle with the heel of her boot and twisting her foot. The man cried out in pain.
“No. We aren’t with them. We’re with another group,” the woman blurted out.
“Stop, Rachelle,” the man said through gritted teeth.
“We don’t want to hurt anyone. We’re just trying to survive. We’ve lost people,” the woman said, breaking down and crying.
The man reached out and took the woman’s hand.
“Where are you staying?” Brandon asked.
“I can’t tell you that. My family…” the woman said before her companion elbowed her hard in the ribs.
“What are we going to do with them?” Lucy asked.
“We can’t let them go. Not until we are ready to leave this area,” Brandon said.
“You can’t just hold us here,” the man said.
“I don’t see that we have any choice. If we let you go, you’ll run back to your group and come back after us.”
“No. We don’t want any trouble. We’re just trying to get by, like you.”