by Nancy Isaak
“Let her go, you bully!” I screamed.
As easily as ridding himself of a gnat, Brandon stood up and threw me to the ground next to Jude. “Well, would you look at that?” he grinned, pointing his sword down at me. “Two for the price of one. Except you, young Kaylee…you, I think I’m going to keep.”
“Not while I’m still alive!” Jacob charged in, his head down low, barreling right into Brandon’s midsection. The big guy went over with a thud, his sword flying from his hand.
“Quickly!” yelled Jacob, holding out both of his hands. Jude took one and I took the other, and he yanked us onto our feet.
Moments later, we were racing toward the gate.
* * * *
Cherry, Peyton, and Jay were waiting at the side gate, worriedly scanning the chaos in front of them.
Jay saw us first. “Kaylee…over here!”
We raced toward them, pushing our way through the crowd.
As we ran, Jude reached out and smacked me on top of my head. “You should have left me, Barbie,” she scolded. “It’s not like I’m going to be here in a few hours anyway.”
“Shaddup!” I snapped. “We don’t leave family behind!”
* * * *
The bullet came from behind us—slamming into the ground at Cherry’s feet.
We all spun around—expecting Brandon—only to find a Hispanic kid, his face marred by a long scar, aiming an enormous gun at us.
“Say hello to my little friend,” he taunted.
But—before the kid could fire—an arrow came sizzling through the air, burrowing itself halfway up its shaft in the Hispanic’s shoulder. With a screech of pain, the kid dropped his gun and fell to the ground.
Peyton immediately raced forward and scooped up the gun, stopping only to deliver a solid kick to the kid’s groin.
“Say hello to my Jimmy Choo’s!” she snapped at him.
The guy’s only response was to curl up in a fetal position, moaning.
* * * *
“Over there!” said Jacob. “Up in that tree at the end of the field…that’s where the archer is!”
We were all huddled together at the gate, trying to figure out our next step. There were guys shooting at us from behind, a crowd of screaming kids all around, and now—someone taking potshots with a bow and arrow.
“Let’s head to those buildings over there,” I suggested. “We get around that corner and we should be out of everybody’s line of fire.”
Thwack…an arrow whizzed by my head.
“Kaylee!” yelled Jacob.
With a soft thunk, the arrow connected with someone behind us and a cry of fury and pain filled the air. We spun around to see Brandon, staggering toward us, the arrow sticking out of his right shoulder.
Thwack…another arrow whizzed by.
This one landed a foot lower than the first, passing straight through Brandon’s waist and coming out the other side.
Thwack…another arrow.
It was like watching in slow motion—Brandon collapsing to the ground as the arrow passed within millimeters of his right ear. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the sight, it all seemed so bizarre. It took Jacob grabbing me by the hand and pulling me away before I came to my senses.
“We have to go, Kaylee…NOW!”
* * * *
She must have seen us trying to escape, because Orla was waiting for us on the other side of the building. There was a machine gun in her hands and she was holding it up high. “Get down!” she yelled. “All of you—get down on the ground.”
With the exception of Jay, we all skidded to a stop.
“You, too, Jay,” cried Orla. “I’ll shoot you…I swear I will!”
But Jay didn’t stop.
Instead, she stalked right up to Orla and pulled the machine gun out of her hands. “Idiot…you’ve still got it on safety.”
And then Jay did something that I would never have expected from her. She turned the machine gun around and smacked Orla in the side of the head. It wasn’t hard enough to knock her out—but it definitely sent her stumbling, screeching in pain.
“You bitch!” Orla snarled, wiping at the angry tears that had appeared in her eyes.
“Whatever,” Jay mumbled, as she snapped the machine gun off of safety. Then, she turned to look at me, holding the weapon up high.
“Finally got my gun, Kaylee!” she said with pride.
* * * *
“Over here!” called a desperate voice. “Kaylee, hurry!”
It came from the indistinct shape of a girl—hidden in the shadows—motioning us toward a pathway that wound itself through the high school.
I knew that—if we followed the pathway to its end—we would come out near the main office.
We started running in that direction.
Halfway there, I finally recognized the girl. “Ohmigod…it’s Cammie!”
("365 Days At War" is available now for pre-order at your favorite online retailer.)
Also by Nancy Isaak:
(The following excerpt is from “Anarchy”.)
ONE
From the bluff where she stood, the young woman could easily see the children playing down on Leo Carrillo State Beach—50 feet below—throwing Frisbees, scampering along the sand, energetically leaping into the green-blue waves of the Pacific Ocean.
A few yards away from the children, a young couple walked hand-in-hand along the edge of the water, while two older women laid out towels and a picnic basket.
Just another glorious sunny day in Southern California.
Tilting her head in utter fascination at such frivolity, the young woman could almost hear the children’s cries of delight from where she stood; she could almost feel the heat of the sun on her bare arms.
Except that—she couldn’t.
Because—that marvelous, vibrant summer day at the beach existed now only on the faded Polaroid photograph that she was holding up—its corners tattered and fraying.
Because—that glorious summer day had actually happened nineteen years ago.
One month before the ‘Event’.
Two months before ‘they’ had emerged from wherever the hell they had been hiding.
Three months before the world had been ‘changed’ forever—at least for humanity.
* * * *
With an irritated sigh, the young woman lowered her ragged photograph—revealing the true beach as it now existed, stretching out from the base of the bluff on which she was standing.
This Leo Carrillo State Beach was empty.
A barren expanse of sand running alongside a silent parking lot, dotted here and there with the rusting hulks of dead cars and overturned garbage cans.
Where thousands of families had once laid on beach towels, where they had slathered sunblock on their reddening backs, where they had eaten barbequed chicken and potato salad and sung camp songs around small fires—now there was nobody.
Just a lonely beach—abandoned, deserted.
Its only occupants the bits of trash that skittered here and there, propelled by the gloom and dank of an incoming marine layer.
"Okay…here we go." The young woman lifted up a small video camera, aiming it—not at the beach—but at her own face.
"Hey, guys," she spoke into the camera's lens. "So, this is Frankie-cam—Episode 1! And me? Why, of course...I'm the soon-to-be famous Frankie!"
She grinned, widely—proud of herself.
"Yay, my first show—here I go! So…I’m twenty-three. Pretty sure about that, but I was like four when Jellystone blew and Abby was only nine, so we could maybe of gotten our ages wrong. But I’m pretty sure I’m twenty-three."
Frankie stopped to rewind her camera, then set it on preview. As she watched her intro wind past through the tiny viewing window, Frankie began to giggle—absolutely delighted.
"Look at me…I got a t.v. show!"
She was very pretty—a delicately-featured girl with long blond hair held back in a messy pony tail, and a pair of light-green
eyes that sparkled with life and laughter. In so many ways, Frankie seemed almost childlike, ethereal—immature, full of self-interest, light of conscience.
Which clashed oddly with the seriousness of the submachine gun.
And the machete.
Frankie wore them both—the submachine gun strung across her back, the machete hanging from her belt. She was also wearing a ripped and stained black t-shirt, and blue jeans bleached almost white from the sun, threadbare and covered with a dark red splatter that could only be the remnants of dried blood.
Ironically—once upon a time—Frankie’s clothes might have been considered ‘shabby-chic’. Now, however, Frankie’s jeans and t-shirt were no more a fashion statement; they were simply really old and really dirty.
And the same could be said about the video camera Frankie was holding.
It was an older model—most likely from the early 2000’s. About the size of a paperback, the camera was scratched and dented, with a chunk of plastic missing from its eyecup.
Frankie turned that camera to the scenery around her now—filming a full 180 degree turn—a close-up of gloomy Leo Carrillo State Beach, to a pan across the dusty hillside behind where she was standing, then finally zooming in on a small beach house in the distance.
"Right there, ladies and gentlemen…that’s where me and Abby live!" Frankie excitedly narrated. "Nice, huh?"
* * * *
In actuality, the beach house was a dilapidated mess—tucked in amongst a tangle of overgrown trees and out-of-control bushes. To anyone else but Frankie, it would have been obvious that the little cement block building was falling apart. It appeared decrepit, uncared-for—almost as if it had been abandoned and left to rot—the walls covered in ivy, while part of the roof seemed close to collapse.
And—if there had once been a front yard to Frankie’s home—it was now completely encased in a riot of brambles; the vegetation was consuming the house—returning the land to its original pre-human condition.
* * * *
"We don’t get a lot of skeeters here," Frankie spoke into the camera. "I mean, you still gotta be careful, but they don’t seem to like being near the water much. So, as long as you’re in by nightfall, it’s basically safe."
Seeing something out of the corner of her eye, Frankie swung the camera around, aiming it at a pod of cetaceans leaping and cavorting along the shoreline below.
"Ooo…look! I love dolphins!" Then, she swung the camera back to herself, once more speaking into the lens. "Abby says that before the Awakening…even before the Event…that there weren’t as many dolphins as there are now. Abby says that people…they actually killed the dolphins and ate them in tuna samiches."
"Abby also says that it’s about to get dark!"
With some reluctance, Frankie turned around to face her older sister.
* * * *
Like Frankie—Abby was very pretty.
But—unlike Frankie—it was difficult to appreciate Abby’s beauty, unless you were willing to look past her wariness, her severity…her hardness.
Because—where smiles danced easily over Frankie’s lips—a frown was Abby’s constant companion. While Frankie laughed into a camera for an audience that wasn’t there, Abby’s eyes flitted first this way, then that—searching, always searching for any possible danger that could be coming their way.
Frankie—the younger sister—always the child.
Abby—the older sister—always the protector.
With a mischievous giggle, Frankie swung her camera over toward her sister. "So, this is Abby."
SMACK!
Abby’s hand shot out, slapping the camera away. "Get that fracking thing out of my face!"
"But it’s my t.v. show," Frankie pouted. "It’s Frankie-cam!"
"Like I give a crapola." Abby reached for her submachine gun that—like Frankie—she was wearing across her back. Its strap snagged on a silver cross around her neck and she struggled for a moment to unhook it. "Dammit!"
"Potty mouth!" Frankie lifted up her camera and aimed it at her older sister again. "Sorry, folks, but my sister’s kind of a bitch."
Abby’s hand lashed out, slapping the camera down again.
"Stop it!" yelled Frankie.
"You know it’s stupid, right?" taunted Abby, finally unhooking her submachine gun. She checked that its safety was off, then her eyes flicked to the hillside above them—looking for any threats. "There isn’t even anyone to see your stupid show."
Frankie aimed the camera at herself. "Frankie-cam out!"
Then, she turned the camera off and turned her attention to her older sister. "People might want to know, Abby…like in the future."
Abby motioned with her submachine gun—a full circle, all around them. "Have you seen any people?"
"There were the Websters, Ms. Know-it-all."
"Over ten years ago...until the skeeters got them."
"You don’t know that! Maybe the Websters went to Canada. They could of got there safe…they could of!"
"Without saying good-bye? Just up and left." Abby snorted in amusement. "You are such a dumbass."
Frankie’s eyes narrowed. "And you’re a bitch…and I told everyone on Frankie-cam, so they know that you’re a bitch, too."
Abby simply grinned. "Bitch with oranges."
An ecstatic smile lit up Frankie’s face.
She immediately took off running toward the beach house.
Abby followed more slowly—her eyes scanning the hillside, the bushes—any place that a predator could hide.
FRANKIE
When I was 6-years old, Abby told me of something called the ‘Event’.
It happened in this place called Jellystone Park.
There was this thing called a volcano there, and it blew up and a lot of people were killed—thousands.
Abby told me that the ‘Event’ was the thing that started it all.
The end of the world.
TWO
"Even after all these years," mused Abby, "all that volcano stuff in the sky…it makes for real beautiful sunsets, don’t it?
The sun was setting—lowering itself into the Pacific Ocean—a horizon of fiery orange-red glare. To the east, a line of dark approached—the shadows of evening making their first appearances.
Abby and Frankie sat cross-legged on a weather-beaten picnic table, overlooking the waves. They were halfway down a hill, on a small cement patio; fifty feet below was the water, fifty feet above, their beach house.
A tilting stone staircase connected all three.
There was a pile of orange peels below the table, lodged here and there in a layer of invasive ice plant that covered the ground all around them. On top of the table—within easy reach—were the girls' weapons.
Two submachine guns and three machetes.
Frankie moaned in delight, practically devouring a handful of orange slices; juice ran down her chin and she licked at it greedily. "Love oranges!"
Abby spit out an orange seed. "You love everything."
"Don’t love skeeters," Frankie quickly corrected her sister.
FRANKIE
When the Event happened—it brought the skeeters out of hiding.
This was called the "Awakening".
Abby said that most adults thought that the volcano going off in Jellystone must have opened a door to a secret world under the ground, and that was how the skeeters got out. Other people thought that maybe the skeeters had been hibernating somewhere and they simply woke up.
The old-timey newspapers—they said it was the ‘Awakening of the Beasts’.
But there were other people who said that the Event and the Awakening were actually this bible-thing called the ‘Rapture’.
They believed that the skeeters were beasts that came from Hell, and that they were sent to earth by God to eat up all the bad people.
The real truth was, however, that nobody ever did find out where the skeeters came from. They just showed up one day and started killing…and they never stoppe
d.
So, whether they’re vampires or demons—Abby and I don’t know.
What we do know, is that they stink…like really bad.
Abby jokes that their smelliness is our ‘skeeters early-warning system’.
Doesn’t matter if you can’t see them—you smell skeeters, you darn well better start running.
By the way, it was Abby who came up with the name ‘skeeters’.
The old-timey newspapers always called them ‘Beasts of Unknown Origins’ or ‘Unidentified Beings’. There was even one newspaper, it called them ‘Were-vamps’.
For us, though—it’s skeeters.
Although, when Abby grabbed me that first day and we started running—like before I can remember—Abby said that she was calling the beasts sh*t-kickers.
She said that it was because she overheard our daddy tell our mommy just after the Awakening that—if you come up against a beast—you get out real fast, because it ain’t easy beating them. Abby said that Daddy told Mommy that the beasts are big and tough and they’re scary, and that they’ll sure as heck kick the sh*t out of you.
So—that’s when Abby started calling them sh*t-kickers.
However, even though it was a really good name, Abby eventually felt kind of bad using it—because sh*t is a bad word…and poop-kickers just sounded kind of stupid.
That’s when they became skeeters.
THREE