Autumn in the Dark Meadows (The Autumn Series)

by Kirby Howell

  “Did you guys see Grey over there? He said he was going to get some aspirin for me, and he hasn’t come back yet.”

  “Um, yeah,” I stammered. “He’s looking, but he might not have any.”

  She said, “Oh, well, that’s okay. I’m fine anyway.” She reached her hands behind her head, arching her back as she stretched. I noticed Ben’s eyes flick away quickly after grazing across the good half foot of bare, tanned stomach Sam exposed as she stretched.

  “Grey doesn’t have aspirin?” Ben asked. “Seems like he should’ve packed that.”

  “He’s just having a hard time finding some stuff,” I said, trying to downplay it.

  Shad offered me a bag of trail mix, and I grabbed a handful.

  “You look like you’re about to fall over, Autumn,” Sam said, patting the saddle in front of her. “Why don’t you sit down?”

  “Oh, I’m okay. Thanks, though,” I replied. When she continued to look at me, I added, “I’ve been sitting on one of those for long enough today. Feels good to stand.”

  I grabbed another handful of trail mix from Shad and looked around. “Where’s the water jug? I need to refill my canteen.”

  “It’s right here,” Sam said. It was like she knew I was trying to avoid her.

  I grabbed the canteen hanging from my saddle and walked over to her. The jug was heavy and slippery with condensation. I wedged my canteen between my feet and picked up the jug. When Sam saw what I was doing, she grabbed the canteen and held it up for me.

  I gritted my teeth and managed a thank you when it was full. I was about to turn away when she quietly said my name. I looked down at her.

  “I know we haven’t really gotten a chance to talk yet, but I think we should. I don’t really get the impression you’re happy to see me.”

  I almost laughed out loud. Why would I be happy to see her? This girl had lied to me, chased me, tried to turn my friends and me over to Karl, and was a genuine threat to everyone I loved.

  “Well, I guess I don’t understand why you’re here,” I said.

  “We’re a lot more alike than you think,” she said, watching me intently, as if she were waiting for me to get it.

  I resisted the urge to list the reasons why this statement was untrue, though I was curious why she thought we were so alike.

  “I came here because I wanted to be safe. Because I want to be around normal, non-brainwashed people. Because I want to try to get back to life how it was before The Plague. And because Karl is one messed-up, psycho, head case.”

  I was intrigued to hear her call Karl a head case. But something else she said caught my attention more. “Brainwashed people?” I repeated.

  Sam nodded. “You know, like from history class. Brainwashed groups doing what their leaders tell them to do? I know it sounds crazy, but it’s like Karl has the same kind of thing going on.”

  I wanted to go sit down on the other side of the group, but thought Sam might leave me alone in the future if she got some things off her chest.

  Sam went on. “You know, after I left Karl, I stopped by my old apartment. The one I lived in before The Plague. My little sister and my mom’s boyfriend were still there, where I’d left them.” She looked up at me. “You lived in The Water Tower, right?”

  I nodded.

  “What did you do with your family’s bodies?” she asked quietly.

  I couldn’t say anything. I was surprised it hadn’t even occurred to me what the immune people around me must have gone through. Seeing their moms or dads, brothers or sisters, children, neighbors, best friends and lovers die before them and not be able to do anything. Watching a person die must be the worst thing in the world, I thought. Watching them pass through to the unknown blackness that waits for them. Holding their hand and feeling them weakly squeeze back, as what makes them “them” slowly leaks out, until the hand you hold reduces to just that, a hand.

  I didn’t have to go through that. My mother and father died far away from me, where I couldn’t watch their eyes dim. It was as if their final parental act had been sparing me from that horror.

  I realized Sam was watching me intently again. “My parents died before they could come home.” My voice cracked slightly on the last word. “How old was your sister?” I asked.

  “Ruby was seven,” she whispered. I could barely hear her over the gusting wind and the snap of the billowing tarp. An image of Rissi when I’d first met her filled my mind. Dark brown curls and dirty feet. Big eyes and a smile to match.

  Sam drew up her uninjured leg and wrapped her skinny arms around her knee. “My mom took off a few days before The Plague showed up. I was waiting for her to leave again. It was kind of inevitable. But whatever, she left, and Tim was there. He was okay. Of all my mom’s boyfriends, I guess I trusted him the most. Ruby got sick first, the afternoon The Plague appeared, then Tim got sick later that night. Ruby died just as the sun came up the next day.”

  I recalled that very same sunrise. I was sitting on my kitchen floor and realizing I was alone. That I’d never see my parents again. That Sarah was gone. That everything I knew was gone.

  Without warning, a tear streaked down my cheek, and I swiped it away quickly. Sam had tears in her eyes, too. She looked at me and laughed suddenly, startling me.

  “I didn’t know what to do with them!” she exclaimed through her tears. “I couldn’t believe my biggest problem wasn’t that my mom had just taken off and left me and my seven-year-old sister with an ex-heroin addict. My biggest problem was that I had two dead bodies I didn’t know what to do with! Who was I, Tony Soprano?”

  I laughed despite myself

  “And then I met Karl. I was at a drug store, looking for food, and he was just suddenly there at the end of the dark aisle, staring at me. He scared the hell out of me, even though he was just standing there. I didn’t hear him walk in or anything. And I hadn’t seen anyone since the outbreak. It had been two whole weeks, and I thought I was the only person left in the world.”

  She rolled her eyes and said, “I actually thought he might be God or Jesus or whoever, come to collect me.” She paused, and then she said, “He was... so... striking.” She bobbed her head with each of the last two words to emphasize them.

  I sat down and stretched my feet out in front of me. It felt good to sit, despite what I’d said earlier about standing.

  “I had never seen anyone quite like him before. I really thought I was going crazy. But he took me with him. He knew what to do. Where to go. He had answers, and I listened to every word he said.”

  She scooted toward me suddenly, as if she were about to tell me a secret, and she said quietly, “You know how sometimes power can be a turn on? Like a girl will get a crush on a teacher or a friend’s dad or something, just because he’s got some kind of authority?”

  I nodded. Sarah had a crush on our history teacher, who, I’d had to admit, was pretty cute.

  “I think that’s what happened to me,” Sam said, staring right at me. “I fell in love with him, because he was so commanding. He always knew the answers, and everyone looked to him to tell them what to do. The power he had, the way everyone adored him... it was intoxicating.” Sam touched her cheek with the palm of her hand.

  With a sinking feeling, I realized I’d felt the same way with Grey. His strong presence and unassailable personality drew me to him. He made me feel safe again.

  “I think I know what you mean,” I said.

  “That guy, Grey, is pretty special, too, isn’t he?” she asked.

  My eyes flicked up at the word “special.” I didn’t want to talk about Grey with her, so I pressed her to continue her story.

  “So what happened to make you want to leave Karl?”

  “I walked in on him with another girl,” she said simply.

  My mouth opened slightly. So they actually had been romantically involved. He had to be fifteen years older than Sam.

  “I’m sorry. To walk in on him kissing another girl when you trusted him –
”

  Sam cut me off. “Oh, they weren’t kissing,” she said bluntly.

  I looked up at her, shock showing plainly on my face.

  “Yeah,” she said in a dry voice. “Karl was my first. He told me I was the only one he was seeing. He also told me he loved me and would do anything for me.” She looked into the darkness toward Las Vegas. After a lengthy pause, she said bitterly, “I know better now.”

  I thought of Grey and couldn’t help but imagine walking in on him with Lydia. A cold splinter of loneliness pierced me, and I took a deep breath, swearing to myself I wouldn’t think that way again. It was too much to handle. Grey hadn’t betrayed me like that. He had withheld vital information, but he’d always protected my heart. Deep down, I knew I would always be safe with him.

  The angry words I’d thrown at him earlier replayed in my mind. “I don’t expect anything from you anymore.”

  Ah, hell.

  I squeezed my irritated eyes shut, and my head sagged on my knees. A small hand touched my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I know you went through a lot, being hunted by Karl for so long.”

  It seemed to take a lot of effort to lift my head. I wiped my nose and said in as level a voice as I could muster, “Seems like you went through a lot worse than I did.”

  “It wasn’t hell when he loved me.”

  I understood that all too well. I nodded. And we were silent together until a burst of light from the west startled me. I stood up, staring at the beam shooting into the low moving clouds.

  “It’s the light from the Egyptian!” I pointed at the light, as the group around me scrambled to their feet. A cheer went up among our camp, and fresh tears stung my dry eyes. Finally, a sign of life.

  CHAPTER SIX

  As we rode into town, the light from the Egyptian shone like a beacon in the predawn haze, and the closer we got, the more magnificent it became. Most of the once frantically lit city was now dark, making the beam from the pyramid stand out more. The quick trot of our horses suddenly didn’t seem fast enough. Both Snicket and I felt the urgency crackling in the dry desert air.

  I knew a little about the history of the Vegas settlement from what Connie told me. She had incorporated a new segment into her teaching plan called “Post-Plague History.” She was determined to preserve as much knowledge as possible about the events following The Plague. She’d painstakingly interviewed everyone in Hoover, collecting first-hand accounts and documenting them all in a homemade history book.

  Las Vegas felt sad and deserted compared to the bustling, new energy of Hoover. The once-luxurious resorts stood broken and hollow, like fragile sandcastles, their previous luster scoured away by the year of unnaturally harsh storms. Massive dunes drifted up against some of the hotels like snow banks, the wind spiraling loose sand off their sharp crests.

  I was thankful that we wouldn’t have to climb many of these dunes to reach the Egyptian, which was near the south end of the Strip. The dune sand was loose and almost impossible for the horses to climb. JR and Josh labored behind us with the wagons, forced to travel around the base of the dunes.

  When we got close enough to see the black pyramid better, my mouth fell open. The amount of damage was striking. Here, Las Vegas Boulevard was buried at least ten feet deep, and the legs of the large Sphinx sitting above the entrance were half-buried in sand. The only evidence of what used to be roads was the barren expanse between the hotels with the occasional traffic light sticking up out of the sand.

  A dark patch on the side of the black glass pyramid caught my eye, and I blinked. There was a gaping hole high up on the side of the Egyptian. Jagged black glass sparkled against bright generator-powered lights, and a huge pole protruded from the massive opening. It was mesmerizing, like the set of a disaster movie my mother worked on when I was younger. I told myself then it wasn’t real, there was no reason to be scared. But this was real, and the sight of it made my stomach churn.

  “They’re in there somewhere,” I managed to say.

  “Not for much longer,” Ben said. I hadn’t heard him ride up beside me. Sam still sat perched in front of him. “We’re gonna get them out.” He looked over at me, determination painted on his face.

  “They’re okay. I feel it,” I said before taking a deep breath to settle my nerves. “They’ve got to be.”

  We urged our horses into a gallop, and the Egyptian loomed larger. Soon, a man ran to meet us and directed our group to a temporary corral set up next door at Camelot Casino. I glanced up at the colorless turrets and the tattered flags snapping in the wind. I was glad to see the light in the eastern sky slowly spreading. It would be easier to work in the daylight.

  We entered the crowded corral, and I dismounted. I looked around as I unstrapped my backpack full of personal items. The amount of horses this town had was staggering, at least three times as many as Hoover. How had they acquired so many? I wondered if some of them were performing horses in the shows here before The Plague.

  “Autumn?”

  I turned to find Grey standing a few feet behind me. He wore a large backpack and held another smaller one in his hands. Two more duffels lay at his feet. Probably full of medical supplies.

  We stared at each other for several moments. Grey opened his mouth, and then closed it. He looked so pained. I almost reached out to comfort him, but then remembered his hurtful comments and stood still, waiting.

  He took a step closer to me. “Autumn, I owe you an apology. For so many things...”

  “Grey, stop.” I held up my hands. He had taken a few more steps, closing the gap between us. At my interruption, he stopped sharply, and his face whitened as if I’d stabbed him in the heart.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so harsh,” I said softly. “I just meant to stop apologizing. It’s hardly all your fault.” My voice wavered. “But we don’t have time for this right now. All that matters is getting inside that pyramid. The stuff between you and me, well... we can get to all that later. I promise. Right now, too many people are counting on us.”

  I took a deep breath to steady myself. It was all catching up to me. My terror over Connie and Rissi, my exhilaration and worry over Sarah, my frustrations over Grey, and my overall exhaustion.

  Grey nodded, then handed me the smaller of the two backpacks. “You mind taking this? We’ll need it.” I agreed and took the bag. Then Grey’s attention was caught by something behind me. I turned and saw a man running toward us at full speed. Seeing his bright red hair glint in the morning light made my heart leap.

  “Daniel!” I yelled and ran to meet him. He scooped me up into a massive bear hug when we met. “Where’s Rissi?! And Connie?! Are they okay? Are you okay? We came as fast as we could!”

  “Rissi’s fine.” Daniel looked at Ben and smiled. “She’s fine, Ben. Not even a scratch.”

  I dropped my arms from Daniel and replaced them around Ben, hugging him tightly with relief.

  “I knew she’d be okay. That little girl is stronger than all of us,” Ben said, hugging me back.

  Daniel continued, “She’s inside, probably still asleep.”

  “And Connie?” Shad’s voice strained. “She’s okay, too, right?”

  Daniel sighed heavily and looked at Shad. “I think she’ll be okay,” he said heavily. “Grey will have to tell us for sure, though.”

  “What do you mean?” Shad grabbed Daniel’s shoulder, his face pinched with terror. I’d never seen Shad so earnest. After The Plague had taken his mom and sisters, he’d met Connie, and she’d taken him in as a son. I didn’t know if Shad would be able to take the blow of losing her. I didn’t know if I could either.

  “I’m sure she’ll be okay,” Sam interjected to no acknowledgement.

  Grey moved closer to Daniel and spoke. “Tell us what happened, and then get me inside,” he said, shouldering a backpack and two medium-sized duffels full of medical equipment. Daniel waved for us to follow him and began leading us toward the south side of th
e pyramid.

  “There was a helicopter on the roof of the hotel next to the Egyptian.” He pointed to the tower looming over the pyramid, glowing gold in the rising sun. “During the storm it was blown off the roof and into the side of the Egyptian, taking out the walkway that connects the two hotels and destroying most of the side of the pyramid itself. The fuselage of the chopper fell through to the top level of the casino floor inside the pyramid and must have hit some gas pipes or something, because the crash created a huge fire ball inside where people were taking shelter.”

  We were closer to the side entrance now, and we struggled through loose sand, sinking ankle deep with each step. I looked up at the Egyptian again, realizing the long pole sticking out of the crash site was the helicopter’s rotor blade.

  Impatient, Shad said, “So, what happened to Connie?”

  “She was burned,” Daniel said. “But not nearly as badly as some of the others.”

  “Oh God,” I breathed.

  “The burns cover most of one leg from the waist down. She’s in a lot of pain.” Daniel looked away quickly.

  Shad’s pace quickened, the shovels in his arms clanging together with every hasty step. His jaw was set, and his eyes were fixed on the hotel before us.

  “Connie was a real hero, though,” Daniel said, turning back to us, his blue eyes bright and damp. “She saved at least three children’s lives, including Rissi’s. Tossed them under a craps table when the helicopter hit and the fire rained in. She barely had time to take cover herself.” Daniel paused, his voice shaded with anger. “I should have been there.”

  “Where were you?” I asked.

  “I was at McCarran Airport. The plane needed an oil change. I had to ride out the storm in the hanger.”

  “You couldn’t have known something like that was going to happen, Daniel,” I said.

  “But it did,” he replied crisply and then turned to Grey. “Please help her.”

  Grey nodded. “She’ll be okay, Daniel.”