Evergreen
Matthew S. Cox
Evergreen
A novel
© 2018 Matthew S. Cox
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to any real persons, places, or nuclear aggression is unintentional. No portion of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the author.
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-949174-92-2
ISBN (Print): 978-1-949174-93-9
Contents
1. Bad People
2. Surviving
3. Papa Taco
4. Hidden
5. Not Quite Normal
6. Colorado Mills
7. Plus Two
8. After the Blast
9. Scavengers
10. Next Time
11. Exodus
12. Interstate 70
13. Full Steam Ahead
14. Going Away
15. Vulnerable
16. A Semblance of Normal
17. Mayor Ned
18. Hilltop Drive
19. Gone
20. Starting Slow
21. Frontier Living
22. Growing Up
23. Deep Discount
24. Alone
25. A Whole lot of Used to
26. Rain
27. The Wild West
28. First Date
29. Too Quiet
30. Family
31. The Brain Bug
32. Dangerous Mercy
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other books by Matthew S. Cox
1
Bad People
Brittle nerves frayed with every shadow that leapt out from the darkest recesses of Harper’s dreams. For hours, she ran down an endless series of ruined streets, hiding from monsters of her imagination until the terrifying loneliness faded to the reality of rancid garbage on every breath.
She grumbled to herself, irritated at being up early. Ever since alarm clocks started controlling her life, she always woke an annoyingly short time before the buzzer went off: not enough time to go back to sleep, but much too early to get out of bed right away. The horrible stink in the air needled at her half-awake consciousness. Her usual complaint about why they had to start school so damn early died before it reached her lips. It hadn’t been a nightmare. She wouldn’t be going to school today.
Or ever again.
Her alarm clock would also never emit another sound. It sat dead in her bedroom, somewhere behind them in a house she couldn’t go back to. Careful to remain silent, she sat up amid the crinkling of plastic, opening her eyes to a bleary vision of a slender black-haired girl huddled asleep against the corner of a cinder block wall, snuggled in a nest of trash bags. Her younger sister Madison had passed out clutching her iPhone to her chest, still expecting to get a text or call from their parents or one of her friends.
Harper hadn’t the heart to tell her the truth.
A ten-year-old’s hope shouldn’t be shattered so cruelly, especially not after she’d watched their parents die. Harper frowned at her sister’s pink flip-flops. The only reason she even had them is because they’d been forgotten in the front yard, an easy grab while fleeing the only home they’d ever known. Madison had been wearing the same denim shorts and white T-shirt for days, not enough to fight off the early November chill. Dad’s bloody handprint stained the left shoulder, half concealed by her sister’s long hair. The girl used her rolled-up denim jacket as a pillow.
Harper raked both hands through her wild red hair, still shaking from the dream creatures chasing her
They’d holed up in the corner of a parking lot behind a building marked Family Medical Center at the end of a strip mall of fast food places. A cinder block ‘bunker’ for trash dumpsters offered a reasonable degree of safety even though it stank like hell. The sour smell of months-old garbage beat getting shot—or worse.
Harper long ago gave up sleeping with a teddy bear, but she had a new security blanket to cling to: Dad’s Mossberg shotgun, which had spent the night resting across her lap. The sight of it frightened her and wracked her with guilt. If she hadn’t hesitated, maybe at least her father would still be alive. One of the crazy thugs who’d attacked them had been only a few feet away from her after barging in their front door. But, she couldn’t do it… couldn’t pull the trigger on another human being. As soon as he’d realized she pointed a shotgun at him, he tried to blow her head off. Dad whirled around and shot him a second before he killed her, but the distraction proved fatal. Another man coming in the kitchen patio door shot him.
She’d grabbed her sister and ran like hell.
For about two months, her family tried to remain at home after the world fell apart. But the gang found them eventually. It seemed as though all the decent people fled Lakewood, leaving only the criminals or those who simply went crazy in response to surviving a nuclear strike behind. She shuddered, remembering what her parents warned her about, what those men would do to her—and even Madison—if they were captured. She hated thinking about her little sister screaming as some grown man assaulted her; however, Harper forced herself to keep that mental image in her head to overpower her squeamishness about killing. Dad already died because of her. She couldn’t allow anyone to hurt Madison.
At thirteen, Harper had won her first trophy for a shooting competition, using the same shotgun… she’d won a few more in the years since, but hitting clay pigeons or paper targets had been easy and fun. Shooting people? That made her want to throw up.
Harper clutched the Mossberg’s pistol grip and closed her eyes. Next time, I won’t hesitate.
She absentmindedly picked at her fat denim purse full of extra shells, Band-Aids, and a couple plastic bottles of water. To make room, she’d dumped out the useless stuff: her keys, cosmetics, phone, mp3 player… and all the other random junk she’d been carrying for three years, ever since Mom gave her the bag for her fourteenth birthday. It had only been two months since the world went insane, but it felt like forever ago.
“At least I don’t have to stress out over the SATs anymore.”
She forced herself upright, stretched, then peeked out the plastic doors of the ‘trash pen’ at a narrow parking lot containing a few abandoned cars, not one of them as helpful as a rock. Flakes of ash still fluttered down from the sky like snow, only a pale sooty grey instead of white. Random chunks of debris, concrete from buildings, traffic lights, bits of signs, littered everywhere. She wondered how much of it had been miles away before the detonations.
Dad dragged everyone out of bed to the basement with mere minutes to spare before the closest one had gone off.
So far, every building they’d seen had been scorched on the south face, some with eerie person-shaped negative silhouettes where a body had lessened the burn on the wall. Many cars had partially melted. Some trees and telephone poles had fallen over wherever they lacked the cover of nearby buildings. Few windows remained intact anywhere in Lakewood. Some shards of glass had even stuck into the walls of her home like knives. The lingering smell of ‘burnt’ had become so pervasive, she only noticed it due to having spent the night breathing the fetid horror of rotting fast food.
Word said Colorado Springs had suffered a direct hit, and the EMP reached as far north as Greeley, possibly well past it. Every bit of electronic tech here in Lakewood had become about as useful as a lawyer. Not like anyone cared about courts or laws anymore, least of all the gang that took over her old neighborhood.
Seeing no one, she crept out of the ‘bunker’ onto a tiny lot of sparse grass behind three large recycling containers, dropped her jeans to relieve herself, and squatted. She clung to the shotgun and kept her eyes on the gap between bins. Once finished, she hurried
back into the trash enclosure and grasped her sister’s shoulder, giving her a light shake.
“I don’t wanna go to school,” muttered Madison. “I don’t feel good.”
Harper stood there a moment, watching the girl breathe. “Come on, Termite.” Again, she nudged her. “We have to keep going.”
Madison opened her eyes, then curled up in a ball, peering over the top of her dead iPhone. Harper averted her gaze from the red handprint on her sister’s otherwise white T-shirt. She couldn’t exactly toss it and make the girl run around topless, but that didn’t mean she had to look at the morbid reminder of Dad’s death.
“We gotta keep going to Evergreen,” said Harper. “It’s morning.”
After a yawn, Madison glanced down at her phone and pushed the button. Nothing happened. A few minutes passed. When she spoke again, her voice had a far off quality that matched her stare. “Dance class is at five. We can’t go to Evergreen. Mom said she’d take me to Starbucks after.”
Harper squatted in front of her, eyes watering from the trash. “It stinks here. Let’s get some air.”
“I guess.” Madison continued staring off into space, occasionally flexing her toes. “It smells bad.”
“Yeah.” Harper grasped her sister’s wrist and pulled her upright. “Get your jacket on.”
Madison picked it up and wriggled into it with little enthusiasm. She looked a bit silly wearing a jacket longer than her shorts, but it had been near the door on the way out. Going home again to grab any of their things would be too dangerous. They’d barely escaped the gang a few days ago. Being chased away from home—plus the thought that her parents’ bodies would still be there—got her crying and clinging to Madison. The girl didn’t appear to mind playing the role of stuffed animal.
She couldn’t let Madison see her cry or understand how much of a chicken she’d been. Even before everything went to hell, she’d been afraid of leaving home for college. Weeks before the war, she’d argued with Dad about that. He had been pushing her to apply to a big name school out of state, thinking her transcript might get her in the door with at least a partial scholarship. She kinda enjoyed school and pulled decent grades, but wanted to stay at home and go someplace close.
I’m a living oxymoron… a shy ginger.
“You forgot your books. You’re gonna fail the SAT test,” said Madison in a toneless voice while fussing at her phone.
“The T in SAT means test.”
“Brainy,” muttered Madison.
Harper gave her a squeeze and released the embrace. “Come on. We should keep going.”
“I wanna go home.” Madison kept pushing the phone’s main button.
Yeah. Me too. Harper took her sister’s hand and led her out of the trash ‘bunker.’ “We can’t right now. It’s too dangerous.”
“I gotta pee.”
“There’s grass behind those bins. Go there.”
Madison finally looked away from the blank screen, scrunching up her face. “Not outside! I need a bathroom.”
It doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing does… except for surviving. “It’s fine. You won’t get in trouble.”
“Don’t look,” said Madison.
Harper pulled the Mossberg off her shoulder and held it sideways, her back turned, standing guard while her sister scurried behind the bins. In a few minutes, the soft pop-pop-pop of flip-flops approached behind her. Harper again took her sister’s hand and walked the length of the narrow parking lot to the street. An inch-thick layer of ashy ‘snow’ covered the road, the sidewalk, ruined cars, and everything else in sight. Scattered footprints made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Here and there, some fires continued burning, hazing the air with smoke that shrank visibility to merely a couple blocks in any direction.
“You wanna play Xbox tonight?” asked Madison.
“Maybe. We’ll see.”
Their game system, like every electronic device in the city, had died. They’d lived for two months on candles and whatever canned food Dad found in neighbors’ empty houses. Fearing another strike, most people had fled the big city, though she had no idea where any of them had gone. One group tried to convince Dad to head to Evergreen since they heard it survived relatively intact and good people had collected there, but he hadn’t wanted to venture out so soon after the detonation.
“Mom was gonna get me a new game after the recital.”
The monotone voice coming out of her little sister raked like a claw over her heart. Madison also inherited the ‘shy’ gene, but not to the same degree as Harper—hence why Mom often treated her to stuff like Starbucks as an encouragement to dance class or other activities she might’ve avoided doing otherwise. More stressful things like recitals sometimes required a bribe of a new video game. Up until a few weeks ago, she’d been full of life, even bubbly. More than for what they did to the world, Harper hated the people who started the war because they’d killed her kid sister inside.
“Can we go to Subway?” asked Madison. “I’m hungry.”
Harper rooted around her purse and pulled out an energy bar. One bit of good luck they’d had so far, finding a convenience store that still had some food in it. Someone else had beat them to it, cleaning it out of almost everything except the granola bars and rotting sandwiches or salads.
“I’m sick of these. I want a veggie-burger.” Still, Madison took the bar and peeled the wrapper open.
They continued to the end of the block and went up a small ash-covered hill into another parking lot in front of a liquor store and the New Peking Chinese restaurant. Harper crossed over to the restaurant, shards of glass crunching under her sneakers near the door. Madison gingerly stepped among the remains of the windows, following her inside.
The first fridge she opened nearly knocked her out from the stink of rotting chicken, seafood, and beef. Harper gagged and slammed the door. Ugh. Why did I even open that? Nothing in Lakewood has had any power for like two months.
“Hey Siri, call Mom,” said Madison.
Harper checked cabinets, but found only cans of sauces or seasonings. “Figures the place makes everything fresh. It’s all gone bad.”
“Hey Siri, Call Eva.” Madison shook her phone. “Call Becca.”
Ugh. Harper peered over her shoulder at her kid sister. Is she pretending or does she really not know that thing is dead? She shut the cabinet doors and stood out of her squat. “’Mon, Termite. There’s nothing here.”
She ducked back out the broken door and went left, heading for the road. The street signs had melted, leaving her clueless about where she was. Too much haze blocked off the sky for her to find the sun, though intermittent gunshots in one direction gave a clue regarding which way not to go. Harper again turned left, following the road toward an apartment complex. She paused a few seconds, gawking at a partially molten steel beam stuck in the ground like a giant arrow.
“This isn’t home,” said Madison.
“I know. We can’t go home. Bad people are there.”
“Bad people are everywhere.”
Harper squeezed the shotgun. “Yeah.”
“Why are there so many bad people now?” Madison tried to catch an ash flake on her tongue, but missed.
“Don’t eat that. It’s poison.”
Madison looked up at her with a ‘so what?’ expression.
“There aren’t any more bad people now than there used to be. But, all the cops are gone, so the bad people just do whatever they want.”
“Oh,” said Madison, head down.
She walked along a gradually curving road between facing rows of two-story apartments, dark beige walls visible in patches under the dusting of ash. Awnings protected lots of cars, almost every space full. The attack had happened early, before sunrise. In the shade of the buildings and awnings, the cars appeared intact, but she knew none of them would work. A few had small burn marks from where wiring had caught fire in response to the EMP wave. Maybe if she found a car from like 1970 or so, it wouldn’t be
dead.
The abandoned apartments offered a potential treasure trove of cool stuff, though all the video games or computers would be useless. Another I-beam jutted out of a roof, stabbed into the building on the left like an enormous spear. She pondered the idea of trying to stay here, moving from apartment to apartment, but didn’t trust being alone with Madison anywhere near Lakewood. The gang would eventually find them.
Harper had to sleep at some point.
They searched a few apartments, collecting some canned goods, a can opener, and a backpack to carry the stuff with. None of the places they checked had any child-sized clothing, though Harper did swipe a denim jacket for herself. The whole time she rummaged, Madison continued staring at the iPhone. Every few minutes, she’d tell Siri to call Mom, Dad, or one of her friends.
After a hurried meal of canned ravioli, she slung the backpack on so she could keep holding the shotgun, and resumed walking.
“What day is it?” asked Madison. “Is school open yet?”
“No, it’s still closed.”
Madison shook the iPhone. “Harp, my phone won’t turn on. Can you fix it? My friends might try to call.”
She really believes it’ll work. Harper looked down, biting her lip at her sister’s bare feet in flip-flops. I need to find her some real shoes… and pants or something. It’s too cold. She eyed more apartments on the right, but fear of the gang pushed her onward. I should be worried that Maddie isn’t complaining about being cold. Better she shivers than those bastards get us.
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