Escaping Darkness (Book 2): The Cloud

by Richards, E. S.

  “Yes,” Chase was on his feet in an instant, wiping his eyes surreptitiously with the back of his sleeve and straightening his posture. “Coffee. That’s exactly what I need. Thanks, Pop.”

  “Bring a few mugs up will you, Chase?” Linda asked as she too started to maneuver herself to her feet, though at her age the act of standing was much less fluid and graceful. “I could do with something to warm my bones.”

  “Will do,” Chase smiled as he disappeared from the back bedroom, pleased to have a moment to himself to get his head straight. Seeing those old photographs and remembering all the times they had shared with his parents had affected him a great deal. Ever since they’d passed away, he’d been forced to be the strong one, to carry the weight on his shoulders, and to help Riley and his grandparents get through it too. Personally, he felt he hadn’t been afforded much time to grieve, nor had he allowed himself much time to dwell on it all. While he tried to act tough and strong, he knew deep down he was still hurting a huge amount.

  “It really is cold up here,” Riley remarked up in the back bedroom. “When do you think we’ll turn the generator on?”

  “I think we’ll have to last a little longer like this I’m afraid, kiddo,” Pop patted his granddaughter on the shoulder. “This storm surely can’t go on for much longer. Once it’s passed it won’t feel as cold in this old place.”

  “I hope so,” Riley replied half-heartedly. The weather outside had been vile for days now—something she wasn’t in support of at all in the middle of July. They should be outside playing, not stuck inside drinking coffee in the middle of the afternoon. She knew there were factors other than the weather that were responsible for it, but the sight outside didn’t help to bolster any of their moods.

  “It’ll pass,” Pop said more confidently this time. “Just give it a few more days. You all settled to move your things in here in the meantime?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Riley shrugged, focusing back on the task at hand and moving her life out of the room she’d always had at her grandparents and into the spare bedroom. “Is the roof still bad in my room?”

  “I’d assume so,” Pop guessed. “I was coming up to check on it when I found you all in here, actually. Why don’t we go and see?”

  Answering without words, Riley and her grandparents all shuffled out of the back bedroom and made their way down the hall to Riley’s room. The door was closed, but as they approached, they could all tell that the temperature was dropping even more. The roof had been leaking in it beforehand, but surely it hadn’t fallen in already? Pushing open the door, Riley gasped as she saw just how soaked her room had become, the hole growing in size as the wind and rain buffeted the roof and spilled through into the house.

  “Oh no,” Riley whined, lurching forward and picking up her things. “It’s all ruined.”

  “No it’s not,” Linda was quickly by her side. “There’s only a few things that are wet and we can dry them out easily enough. Nothing’s ruined, sweetheart; don’t get upset.”

  Suddenly it was all too much for Riley, bursting into tears and running out of her bedroom. She knew she wasn’t that upset about what had happened in her room; a few books were wet and her stuffed animals would need a wash, but aside from that nothing was actually ruined. Seeing everything like that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. Her emotions had been building up inside her for days and while she might have broken down and cried a little in front of Chase, she hadn’t truly let it all out. Now, after having just had all memories of her parents brought back into her mind, there was nothing there to stop the tears from coming.

  Riley rushed past her brother on the stairs down to the kitchen, knocking his arm and sending two of the mugs of coffee he carried on a tray tumbling onto the carpet. He yelled out and called her name, but Riley didn’t stop to explain things. He would understand, and it was only coffee.

  With her eyes blurring, Riley made her way into the mudroom, flinging open the door and causing the chickens to all jump up and flap their wings in a frenzy. Sobbing she dumped her body down on a bale of hay in their makeshift chicken enclosure and buried her head in her hands. She felt pathetic, but she couldn’t help it. Being strong was hard work and she just needed a few moments to herself to breathe.

  “Go away!” Riley shouted as there was a knock on the mudroom door, desperate to just have some time to herself. It didn’t work, the door creaking open anyway and her brother sticking his head around the corner.

  “Riley, what’s up? Are you okay?”

  Taking a deep breath, Riley lifted her head from her hands and made eye contact with her brother. “Chase, please,” she started, “just give me a minute.”

  There was silence between the two siblings for a few seconds as Chase regarded his sister, judging the predicament she found herself in. “All right,” he nodded eventually. “You know where I am if you need me.”

  Flashing her brother a grateful smile, Riley exhaled deeply as he withdrew his head from the mudroom and closed the door. Already she felt better. Life was going to be hard from now on, and in reality that wasn’t any different from what she’d been telling herself for the last fifteen months. But it was okay to not be okay all the time. Her mother had told her that from time to time when she was younger: “It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to show your emotions. Just because you want to appear strong on the outside doesn’t mean you can’t let yourself be weak on the inside when you need to be.”

  Leaning back on the hay bale, Riley’s heart rate finally began to slow. Henrietta, her favorite chicken, brushed up against her leg in what Riley deemed an affectionate manner. She knew the chicken didn’t really have a clue what was going on, but it still made her feel better.

  “Oh Henny,” Riley sighed. “I wish my life was as simple as yours.”

  Upstairs in Riley’s original bedroom, the other three members of the farmhouse could very well have been wishing the same thing. Chase stood underneath the hole in the ceiling, coffee staining his pants while his grandparents drank the two mugs that had managed to survive the journey upstairs. He was worried about Riley, but he knew she would be okay eventually. The hole in the ceiling above his head worried him more. The coffee may have dampened his pants, but the rain that was lashing down on his T-shirt was much more of a concern.

  “This is bad,” he stated the obvious with his hands on his hips. “It’s definitely bigger than it was yesterday.”

  “I know,” Jerry agreed, stifling a cough before he continued to speak. “But we can’t get out onto the roof to fix it when the weather’s like this. It’s too dangerous.”

  “What about patching it up from the inside?” Chase suggested, walking a few paces to the left to view the hole from a different angle. “Is there any way we could do that?”

  “We could try, I guess,” Jerry nodded, putting down his mug of coffee and walking over to where Chase stood. “Well technically,” he corrected himself, “we don’t really have much of a choice. We can’t leave it how it is and we can’t get outside. We’re going to have to patch it up from the inside.”

  “Will that work just as well?” Linda asked from the side of the room, busying herself with stacking Riley’s possessions into piles and laying out various pots and buckets around the room to catch the dripping water. Chase had told his grandparents where Riley had gone and they’d all agreed it was just best to give her the time she needed. They knew things were hard for everyone and everyone had the right to deal with their emotions in their own way.

  “It won’t be as strong,” Jerry replied as he thought it through. “But it should work. If we can get boards across the hole and stretch a tarp or something waterproof over them then that should suffice until we can get on the roof.”

  “Sounds like a job for the two of you,” Linda smiled. “I’ll go and finish up in the back bedroom instead, I think.”

  Jerry laughed, rolling his eyes slightly at how his wife always managed to get away without doing the hard labor
somehow. To his annoyance, his laugh quickly turned into a cough, hacking at his lungs and forcing him to rest a hand on his grandson’s shoulder for support. The cough was definitely getting worse and in an instant, it zapped all the energy from him. He could feel his legs getting weaker beneath him and his head felt more clouded than before. Jerry wanted to sit down, but his pride wouldn’t let him.

  “You all right, Pop?” Chase asked as his grandfather leaned against him, the old man’s body shaking as he coughed.

  “I’m fine,” Jerry eventually answered once his airways were clear enough to do so. “Just a little tickle, don’t worry about me.”

  Linda loitered in the doorway, her husband’s coughing fit encouraging her to stay behind rather than continue the tasks in the back bedroom like she’d proposed. She tilted her head to one side and tried to assess how he was truly feeling. Jerry had never been one for admitting his weaknesses, always determined to be the best and to appear as strong as possible—especially in front of those he loved. She had gotten very good at reading him over the years and immediately she could tell that he wasn’t as well as he wanted her and Chase to believe.

  “I’m fine,” Jerry repeated as he saw Linda looking at him. “Go on and finish in the back bedroom. We’ll manage in here.”

  Pursing her lips, Linda gave in to her husband’s wishes and slipped away, keeping her ears pricked for any further coughing fits that came from Riley’s bedroom. Jerry knew his wife and he knew she would still be listening. He smiled at his grandson and pushed away from his sixteen-year-old frame, making his way over to Riley’s slightly damp bed and sitting down there instead.

  “I really am fine,” he felt the need to say once more to Chase, keeping his voice low as to not evoke any argument. “I just want to get this over and done with so we can rest this evening.”

  Chase also took a second to think about his grandfather’s appearance before responding. He had mixed emotions about it. After everything that had happened outside with Pop forgetting who he was and what he was doing, Chase was reluctant to give him the benefit of the doubt. But then, there was the conversation they’d shared in the basement. At the end of the day, Chase trusted his grandfather and while he was a proud man, they both knew that if and when he truly needed help, he would admit it.

  “Okay,” Chase nodded. “What do we need?”

  “An old tarp to start,” Jerry answered, glad he didn’t have to fight with his grandson over this. “There’s definitely one in the mudroom, though I think it might be in use now. If so, you might have to check out in the barn, I’m afraid. Although, we need wooden boards too and they’re definitely in the barn. Is that okay?”

  “Sure thing,” Chase replied. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got the Re-Breather 3000 now, remember? I can just use that if I need to head outside.”

  “Ah, of course,” Jerry smiled. “What a brilliant invention, eh?”

  “Truly brilliant,” Chase laughed. “I’ll go and check on Riley again as well, see how she’s doing. You need anything else?”

  “No, that should about cover it for now.”

  “All right,” Chase confirmed. “Back in a flash.”

  Leaving Pop sitting alone on Riley’s bed, Chase made his way downstairs. He didn’t have a choice but to trust the old man; it was too much of a task to disagree with him all the time or to challenge his word. Just as with Riley earlier, he knew that everyone needed their own time to deal with things in their own way. He wasn’t going to interrupt that process for anyone; especially as Chase knew that he needed it for himself just as much.

  Knocking politely and then poking his head around the mudroom door once more, Chase found Riley in a more positive frame of mind. She was crouched on the ground reaching under their makeshift chicken huts, pulling out eggs that had rolled to the back. There was a smile on her face but as she turned to look at her brother, Chase could tell she had been crying. If she wanted to talk about it, he was there, but he was still going to wait for her to come to him.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Riley nodded. “You?”

  “Yeah,” Chase repeated. “Just heading out to the barn to get supplies to fix your roof. You need anything?”

  “Naw,” Riley shook her head. “I’m good. Thanks, Chase.”

  “Any time,” Chase smiled at his sister, hoping that she knew how deeply he meant it. He was there for her no matter what. It was going to take more than what had happened to tear his family apart any further.

  Chapter 6

  Doing as he had been instructed, Blake picked up the radio from underneath the counter in Vic’s little corner store. The shotgun that the shop owner had pointed at him earlier still lay across it, the barrel aimed directly at the door. For the millionth time in such a short span, Blake reminded himself how lucky he had been. He was in for the long haul with Vic now, just the two of them hunkered down in the old store for however long it took. Blake hoped it wouldn’t be forever, but he knew they had to do whatever was necessary in order to survive in the aftermath of what had happened. He was just making his way back to Vic when a flurry of loud bangs on the security gate outside echoed through the store, the noise drowning out whatever safety Blake had momentarily felt there. Someone had found them.

  Vic swore under his breath in whatever his native language was, the Eastern European standing at Blake’s side before the bangs had ended. “Stay quiet,” he whispered under his breath. “They don’t know that we’re in here.”

  “I know you’re in there, Vic!” A shout came from outside, causing both Blake and Vic to wince simultaneously. “I saw you close the place up. You’re not planning on staying in there alone this whole time, are you? I reckon you could do with some company!”

  The man outside punctuated the end of his sentence with more bangs on the gate, the clanging echoing through the store and hurting Blake’s ears. He didn’t know what to say. Whoever was out there sounded dangerous and Blake definitely didn’t want to let them inside. He realized, though, that it wasn’t his decision at all. By coming into Vic’s store and choosing to stay inside, he was now at the mercy of the man’s decisions. Like it or not, Blake had to go with whatever Vic decided to do.

  “Do you know who that is?” Blake whispered back, looking at Vic hopefully as he saw the man weighing up his options.

  “I’m not sure,” Vic replied, “but I’ve got a pretty good idea. And neither of the men I’m thinking of are likely to go away without a fight.”

  “Then what do we—”

  Blake’s question was cut short by more banging outside, the outsider getting angry that he wasn’t being given what he wanted. “Come on, Vic!” The shouts came again, undoubtedly attracting attention outside if there was anyone else around. “Just let me in and that’ll be the end of it. You don’t want me to come back with all my boys, do you?”

  Blake shot Vic a look of horror; he didn’t like the sound of that threat. He was certain that other people outside would have already gotten wind of what was happening. If even a dozen people decided they wanted a piece of what was inside the store then they didn’t stand much of a choice. Sure they were kitted out inside, but the security gate was just as old and basic as any other store’s in the city. Then, once they were open it was touch and go where the advantage would lie.

  “Boys?” Blake whispered, trying to hide the fear from his voice. He was a big man himself, and while his career may have been one that pushed him into dangerous situations, they were all fabricated for drama and more often than not he chose to avoid conflict if he could. “Who are his boys?”

  Vic placed a finger over his lips, indicating for Blake to be quiet. The man was clearly thinking of something, but Blake had absolutely no idea what. The mystery of it all made him even more nervous, his hands balled up into fists to hide the tremor in them. Looking around the store and knowing what was in the back room, Blake gave them pretty strong odds of surviving if this one man managed to break his way in. The entrance
to the store was a bottleneck and theoretically they could pick people off one by one if they needed to. But there was still an element of Blake that was unsure.

  Technically he had known Vic for several years and he interacted with him almost every day. He came in and bought the overpriced milk and bread, knowing he could save at least fifty cents at the chain store farther down the road but choosing to support independent businesses nonetheless. He had turned a blind eye when he became aware of the shady dealings Vic managed from the back room, not wanting to be involved or cause any trouble for any of the parties involved. But knowing all that, did Blake really trust this man? Perhaps he had acted too quickly in his decision to stay with Vic. Perhaps he had made the wrong choice after all. His apartment building might not be well protected or contain any necessary supplies to get through this natural disaster, but at least that would be the only problem he’d be dealing with. No one was hunting him down. No one wanted any of his hidden treasures. He may have been unprepared, but at least he wasn’t a target.

  “This is your last chance, Vic!” the man shouted from outside again, anger rising in his voice as he slammed his fist—or something—into the gate again. “I’m giving you ten seconds or I’m going to get my boys and then we’re coming back here to take what we deserve.”

  There was a pause, where Blake looked at Vic frantically, begging for him to say something.

  “Ten... Nine...”

  “What are you going to do?” Blake whispered anxiously, more than aware that they were running out of time.

  “Eight...”

  “Can’t you just let him in? Give him what he wants?”

  “Seven... Six...”

  Blake was at his wit’s end. He considered shouting out himself and interacting with the man, but when he opened his mouth to call, he found his voice had escaped him. He was ashamed. Why was he so terrified? This wasn’t how he had been raised to be. But with the countdown continuing outside, Blake felt like his life quite literally hung in the balance.