by AJ Powers
But the truth was, Tessa wasn’t happily married, and she hadn’t been in years. Tessa’s husband, Trent, was a news anchor for one of the local networks in Cincinnati. He quickly climbed the ranks from the pre-dawn morning broadcaster to the eleven o’clock co-anchor, to the six o’clock lead anchor in just under two years. Some of it was his talent, sure, but most of it was a case of right place, right time, along with kissing the right asses. Nevertheless, how he reached local celebrity status hadn’t stopped him from letting it go to his head, and it wasn’t long before Tessa discovered a few scuffs of lipstick on his boxer shorts.
Tessa never let Trent know she was aware of his extramarital activities. Partially because she didn’t want to believe she’d married such a douchebag, but mostly because she hadn’t wanted Naomi to find out that her father was such a douchebag. Despite his unfaithfulness to her, Trent had been an incredibly loving father since the day Naomi was born. Tessa hadn’t wanted to do anything to jeopardize that bond—for Naomi’s sake. Which was also why she’d never had her lawyer draft up the divorce papers.
And even though her husband was as faithful as a politician, and she had a plethora of men—attractive, successful men—regularly trying to lure her into bed, Tessa always stopped herself from ever going down that path. She was still married to the man, and sleeping around, even if he did so first, would have made her just as big of a douchebag as him. She was just never able to bring herself to do it.
Occasionally, Tessa could see the guilt gnawing at Trent’s conscience, and, like clockwork, he’d do something special for her a short time later. Sometimes it was a weekend at Martha’s Vineyard, other times it was an extravagant purchase such as a diamond tennis bracelet or the Porsche Cayenne parked in the garage. Though she always feigned excitement and appreciation, she rarely thanked him with the physical affection he was angling for. And, on the rare occasion she did, Tessa needed to see the bottom of a few wine glasses before she allowed her cheating husband’s hands to explore her body so intimately.
A little over four years ago, after seeing a floozy intern flirting with Trent at a fundraising gala, Tessa hit the open bar. Hard. And though her memory of the night was spotty at best, she remembered going from rage to blinding jealousy over the course of a single Long Island iced tea. The next thing she could remember she was leading Trent into a maintenance closet, which led to TJ…
Her knee-jerk reaction was to walk down the hall to the obstetrician and undo the permanence of that drunken night, but she’d changed her mind in the eleventh hour. Tessa had always wanted another child, she just didn’t want to bring one into a loveless marriage. But the chips had fallen where they were, and Tessa decided her child shouldn’t be the one to pay for the sins of his father.
TJ’s arrival also brought with it a change in Trent’s behavior. Tessa could tell he was making a genuine effort to restore their marriage, to return to how things were when they were young and madly in love. It wasn’t the expensive gestures that let her know he was sorry, but the little ones, such as rubbing her feet as she lay in bed, downloading her hectic day on him. Or waking up early to cook her breakfast before she rushed out the door. He was thoughtful… caring… loving. And slowly, over many long, painful months of healing, Tessa was finally able to forgive Trent. She was finally able to trust him again.
But it didn’t matter anymore. Trent was dead now, and Tessa was about to be forced out of her home.
“How did this happen?” she whispered as her face fell into her hands, her eyes releasing a steady stream of tears.
Two months ago, Tessa was sitting in her office, plowing through a mountain of paperwork like she did at the end of every work day, when she got the cryptic call from her friend Riya, who worked for the CDC. Now, her family was running out of food and water, and the city was overrun with infected. Tessa and her children had been trapped inside their gated estate for nearly sixty days with no way to replenish their supplies. But food had become the least of her worries. After two weeks of virtually no contact with the outside world, her emergency weather radio shrieked with paralyzing news.
Cincinnati was the target for a military airstrike.
Ever since the TV and radios changed to a looping message, Tessa debated whether her family should try to ride out the storm from the comfort of their own home or risk the long trip to El Paso. There were pros and cons to both options, and Tessa still hadn’t made up her mind which was the best choice, but the US government just decided for her.
They were going to Texas.
A pair of light footsteps coming from the stairs snapped Tessa from her daze. Clearing her throat, she swiped at the tears in her eyes with her sleeve. She sat up straight on the stool and put on the bravest face she could muster in the moment.
“TJ’s finally asleep,” Naomi said as she walked into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
“Good. Thanks for watching him this morning, sweetie. I just… I just needed some time to think.”
Naomi cracked the lid on her bottle and took a swig of water before sitting down next to Tessa. “What’s wrong?” she asked after noticing her mother’s red, puffy eyes.
Tessa’s stomach twisted with anxiety as she tried to think of the best way to answer. She didn’t have a plan—at least, not a good one, anyway. She couldn’t even sell herself on the idea, yet she needed to somehow convince her fifteen-year-old daughter that they were going to be able to safely travel halfway across a country flooded with ravenous creatures hellbent on killing everyone they encountered. And to do so with limited supplies and no real survival experience was an insane idea at best, but what other choice did she have?
“Uhm,” Tessa said, her eyes glassing up again, “we need to leave.”
Naomi’s expression fell grim. She furrowed her brows and shook her head. “What? And go where?”
“El Paso.”
“Texas? Why?”
“Before the Internet went down, I read that El Paso had some sort of refugee camp that FEMA was building. Anyone that could make it there would get food and shelter. And there are a lot of soldiers guarding the place,” she replied, her voice feigning optimism.
Tessa wasn’t dumb. She knew places like that, especially ones as large as the El Paso camps were estimated to be, were hellholes. Overcrowded tents, food rations with less than a thousand calories a day, and then the awful stench that comes with large crowds of people living together without indoor plumbing. Not to mention the sexual predators who would be living amongst them. She wasn’t kidding herself; it was going to be awful. However, at the moment, it was the lesser of the two terrible choices she had. And if they could just get there and get a better understanding of what was going on with this virus, or parasite, or whatever the hell it was, maybe it would just be a short-term stay. And, in the interim, Tessa would market her skills as a surgeon, along with her femininity, to improve their accommodations.
“How do you know it’s even still there?” Naomi asked.
“I don’t, for sure.”
“What about Dad? What if he comes back after we leave?”
“Naomi,” Tessa reached out, grabbing her daughter’s hand, “I don’t know that he’s coming back,” she said, genuine grief in her voice.
“No!” Naomi barked. “He is coming back, and we aren’t leaving without him. I want to sleep in my bed inside my house, where we’re safe.”
Tessa took a deep, woeful breath as she gazed into Naomi’s eyes. She wanted nothing more than to give in to her daughter’s demands and stay in the comfort of their home. But the emergency alert called for the evacuation of Cincinnati, and all neighboring suburbs. And though she couldn’t remember exactly what was said, the tone of the message was clear: Stay at your own peril.
“We just can’t, sweetie,” Tessa said softly. “I really wish we could, but we… we just can’t. We have to go, Naomi.”
The look of terror in Naomi’s eyes bored a hole straight through Tessa’s heart.
This was as awful a choice a mother could ever face, and she still wasn’t sure it was the right one, but she no longer had the luxury to waffle on the decision. The airstrikes were scheduled to come the day after tomorrow, and Tessa wanted to be out of town long before then.
The look on Tessa’s face fueled Naomi’s angst. “Mom… I don’t want to leave… I’m scared.”
Tessa grabbed Naomi’s hand and pulled her close for a hug. They were both trembling. Both crying. “I know, baby. I am, too. But you are so much stronger than you realize. You can do this. We can do this. Together.” Tessa smiled through her own agony before pulling away, looking her daughter in the eyes. “We will get through this. I promise.”
Naomi pursed her lips together as she fought back another wave of tears and gave a subtle nod. “Yeah. O-O-Okay.”
“That’s my girl,” Tessa said, her daughter’s bravery inspiring her to have some more of her own. “Listen, I need you to go pack up some clothes for you and TJ, but make sure you leave room in the backpack for food and water. We’ll need to bring as much as we can onto the boat.”
“We’re taking the boat?” Naomi asked.
“I think it’s our safest option.”
“Do you even know how to drive it?”
“Of course,” Tessa lied.
Naomi’s apprehension swelled at the mention of the boat, but she pushed her fear aside, putting her trust and faith in her mother. “All right, well, when are we leaving?”
“As soon TJ wakes up from his nap.”
Chapter Four
4 – Indian Hill, Ohio – May 24th
Tessa stood on her toes and reached up to grab the large, ballistic nylon bag from the shelf in her closet. She dumped its contents onto her bed and spread everything out with her hands. The heap of medical supplies in front of her ranged from butterfly strips to highly controlled substances that would cover a myriad of medical situations her family might face. The decision to “borrow” the supplies from the hospital was a risky one. If Tessa had been caught sneaking them out, she would have likely been arrested on the spot. But the nagging feeling in the back of her head had told her it was a risk worth taking. If things were to get as dicey as Riya made them sound, then Tessa wanted to be ready for anything.
She had no regrets.
After repacking the medical supplies into the bag, Tessa pulled out the top drawer of her bedside table. Beneath a few notebooks and some family photos was her Smith & Wesson M&P Shield. Trent bought her the small 9mm pistol back when he worked the 11PM slot. He told her it made him feel better knowing she had some way of protecting herself and Naomi while he was at work. He taught her how to load the magazine, chamber a round, and then hit the target. Her accuracy wasn’t going to win her a competition anytime soon, but it was sufficient enough to take down an attacker—human or otherwise.
With one gut-wrenching exception, Tessa hadn’t fired the gun in over two years. Probably hadn’t even picked it up. But she knew the compact pistol would be vital to their survival during their travels and was thankful she had at least a basic understanding of how guns worked.
She loosened her belt and slid the holster inside her waistband, placing it just behind her front right pocket. She grabbed the two spare magazines from the bottom of the drawer and stuffed them into her back pocket before pulling out the extra box of ammunition. She dropped the ammo on top of some surgical pads inside her med kit and then gave the zippers a quick tug before slinging it over her shoulder.
As Tessa walked over to the door, her eyes moved to the window and rested on the pool house about fifty yards away. A smothering sense of guilt and sorrow descended upon her, and her chest began to tighten. She hadn’t been out to the pool house since that dreadful night, and she had no desire to go out there since. But now that she knew she’d never be coming back, she felt compelled to at least say goodbye. With her gaze locked on the tiny house, Tessa’s head began to shake. “No,” she whispered. “There’s no time,” she reasoned before purging the thoughts from her head and finding Naomi.
Down in the kitchen, Naomi was filling the empty spaces of their backpacks with canned goods and bottled water. She had also set aside a large, black duffel bag that would be devoted to extra food. Since the pantry was already looking pretty skimpy, Tessa hoped they’d be able to fit most of the food they had left into the three bags. Though she was still ironing out the details of their journey, making as few stops as possible was something she was committed to. Their method of travel wasn’t conducive for a quick stop at a convenience store, and Tessa wasn’t some special forces soldier who could battle it out with a giant horde of infected. Her plan was to only stop for three to four hours of sleep each night. Nothing more. It would be just like her days as an intern, only with guns instead of scalpels. And… her patients were trying to kill her.
“Is this ready?” Tessa asked as she indicated one of the backpacks next to Naomi.
“Yes,” Naomi replied, placing more canned food into the other backpack.
Tessa set the med kit down on the counter before grabbing the top strap of the backpack, grunting as she lifted the heavy bag off the ground. She slung the bag over her shoulders and collected a few more things from the kitchen before tromping out to the garage. With full hands, she struggled to get the hatch of the Porsche open, nearly dropping everything in the process, but finally succeeded. After emptying her hands, Tessa turned around and pried the straps off her shoulders, allowing the backpack to drop with a hefty thud. The suspension on the performance SUV recoiled as Tessa let out an exhausted sigh.
Resting on the bumper, Tessa rubbed at her shoulder as her mind wandered. She envisioned what it was like outside the wrought iron boundaries of her small estate. Were the streets flooded with infected waiting to attack some poor, unsuspecting mother trying to protect her children? Were they clumping up in masses, making the roads impassable? Or did they perhaps already leave town in search for more food? After all, over the past two weeks Tessa hadn’t seen but one or two roaming around her neighborhood. Maybe that was a sign that there weren’t as many in the area as she feared…
Tessa shook her head, quickly writing off the theory as wishful thinking. It didn’t make much sense for the government to flatten a US city if there wasn’t a high concentration of infected in the area. No, the infected were in the area, despite what her little bubble of paradise might suggest, and thinking otherwise would likely get her and her children killed. She needed to stay on high alert and assume that one of those monsters was hiding behind every corner she approached.
Shrugging off the startling imagery, Tessa reluctantly stood to her feet. The clock was already against them, and spending her time worrying about what horrors awaited her and her family on the outside did nothing to get them out of the door any faster. TJ would be awake soon, and they needed to be ready to move out the moment he was.
Back inside, Tessa helped Naomi finish packing up the rest of the food, and together they heave-hoed the duffel bag out to the SUV. The bag must have weighed close to Tessa’s bodyweight, which gave her a much-needed shot of confidence that there’d be enough food to last them the entire journey. On the flipside, however, hauling the food onto the boat would put her and the kids in a very vulnerable state, which was one of the many problems she had yet to figure out. She just prayed the marina would be clear of infected, allowing her to take her time casting off from the docks. It would be anything but a speedy getaway.
Tessa had only driven the boat a few times, and only after it was already out on the water. Trent was always the official captain of the vessel, and that was fine by her. On the rare occasion that the entire family was able to spend the day out on the river, she much preferred relaxing on the deck than manning the helm. However, Tessa was confident that she’d be able to figure it out. After all, she implanted one man’s heart into another man’s chest on multiple occasions. So, how hard could it be to start a boat?
After they finished packing the car, Tessa
stepped outside to do a limited recon of the neighborhood. Walking through knee-high grass that was slowly being choked out by dandelions, she couldn’t help but laugh at how mortified she would have been to have such a frowzy-looking lawn in the past. It was why she’d forked over $1200 a month to a landscaping company over the last five years. The front lawn was the first thing a person saw when pulling into the driveway; it needed to be as well maintained as the house itself.
Of course, she now realized what a stupid waste of money that had been. Over the years, she’d spent tens of thousands of dollars making sure her grass was always greener, and more skillfully manicured, than the neighbors’. But at the end of the day, having healthy, neatly trimmed grass had no significant impact on her. It was yet another thing about her past life she would change if she could go back and do it all over again.
If.
Tessa quietly approached the front gate, her hand brushing against the handle of her pistol. She listened intently for any signs of life, but all she heard was a springtime breeze rustling the tree branches overhead. She paced the front perimeter several times, peering between the thick hedges as often as she could. The neighborhood was silent; a promising start to their voyage.
Feeling as if she was being watched, Tessa turned to find Naomi standing in the doorway, her little brother on her hip. The image stopped Tessa in her tracks. With the exception of the tall grass, it could have been any other day before the infection spread. While TJ’s white hair and blue eyes favored his father’s appearance, Naomi was a perfect mix of her parents. Her long, strawberry blond hair hung perfectly straight over her shoulder, and even from a distance, Tessa could see the pronounced shape of her apple cheeks. With her long eyelashes and a smile that could kill, Naomi was stunningly beautiful. As a mother, Tessa worried for her daughter, fearing her beauty would make her a target, and her concern was magnified in her reality. Especially while considering the FEMA camps of El Paso. But, really, what choice did she have but to leave?