Oil Apocalypse Collection

by Lou Cadle

  “We’re going to visit Sierra for a while. So let’s everybody pack a backpack. Underwear, socks. Put on your good tennis shoes.” Joan herded the kids back through a living room.

  Sierra called after her, “Put on plain dark clothes and jeans,” and then looked through the refrigerator, realized it was off and empty, and then glanced through a few cabinets. Not any food beyond a few vegetables on the counter. There was far more back home than they had here. Even without the guards and the rape and the terror, it would be a better life for them up the hill. She tried the tap, and water trickled out. She took the opportunity to fill all her empty water bottles and found more under the sink and filled those for the Kershaw family to use.

  It took them a half-hour to pack, which seemed like forever, but which Sierra thought was probably pretty quick for getting two pre-teen girls on the move. The three of them came out carrying or wearing backpacks. Joan took another few minutes to root through her daughters’ packs, nodded, said, “Just a minute,” and ran back again to the bedrooms with her pack dangling from her hand. She saw the water bottles on the counter and distributed them between their three packs. “Thank you. We’re ready.”

  “Okay, guys. We need to be fast, and we need to be quiet. Let me show you a couple signals.”

  “It’s dark out,” said Joan. “How can we see them?”

  “You’ll see better than you think in the bit of moonlight. Just three to memorize, okay? Stop, come ahead, and down.” She demonstrated—intuitive signs, really, but she wanted to make sure they knew what she meant. “Let’s practice with your mom, okay? Joan, go over to the door to the hall, and I’ll signal you.” She signaled come ahead, then stop, then down. “Good job. Just get down faster, okay? Emily, Misha, you think you can do that?”

  Misha nodded. Emily said nothing.

  She felt deep sympathy for the poor child. It had been a terrible day for the girl. Sierra was glad she was getting her out of here. Tomorrow would be a better day for them all.

  If she didn’t get them all killed before tomorrow came.

  Chapter 9

  She told them in a dozen words her plan for escape. Straight out of town, up the hill through the brush and trees, and then around the town to the west. It might be safer to go the other way, the long way around, but she didn’t think she could get all three of them there in a day. Not unless they had a lot more experience at hiking than seemed likely.

  They had to return to the scene of the crime earlier today. Not her and Dev shooting those bastards. She didn’t mean that—that was no crime. That was justice being served.

  Sierra hoped Emily wouldn’t freeze at the sight of the spot, so she picked up her own pace and signaled them forward, hoping to hurry them along, trying to outrun the girl’s trauma. Impossible, of course.

  No one was out on the street, no neighbors looked out a window that she noticed, though the footsteps of four people seemed loud to her.

  She took a jog down one street and then up another and came to a barrier at the end of that road where the brush began. Time to go cross-country. She checked to make sure they were all keeping up, and they were. She pointed up the hill and started climbing as fast as she could.

  With all the bushes, it wasn’t a quiet ascent. Thorns snagged at her T-shirt and scratched her arms. But she struggled ahead anyway, not looking back. If they were spotted, she’d know soon enough. There’d be yelling or gunfire. The sooner the others were hidden by the brush, the better. The sooner she was up there, balanced, her rifle in hand, the sooner she could defend them. She heard the noise behind her. They were falling behind. “C’mon, hon,” Joan said to one of her girls.

  Sierra spared a thought for how drastically their lives had changed in the past two months. Everyone’s had, but imagine being a kid, comfortable at home, your mom employed and respected in town, going to school, looking forward to summer vacation. Then no gas, no food, plus violence, invasion, rape. They must feel they were stuck in a bad dream. At least Sierra and Dev understood what was going on. Two girls that looked to be ten and twelve? It had to be beyond confusing.

  She wondered how Joan had kept them fed. The three of them were thin, and Joan’s clothes in particular hung on her, suggesting recent weight loss. It stunted a kid’s growth to eat too little, didn’t it?

  They’d get good food once they were settled in the Morrow house. Eggs, fresh vegetables. The other families had emptied out the Morrow refrigerator and freezer after the suicide, but once they got the power up and working there again, they’d return most of that food, if Sierra had anything to say about it.

  She came out onto a flat spot and flipped Joan’s flashlight on for just a second. It wasn’t where she and Dev had fired from, not exactly, but the spot had to be near here.

  They were over halfway up to where she wanted to be, which was considerably lower than where Dev was sleeping. Sierra shifted her position until she could see down into town. No sign of anyone following. She’d been lucky. She hoped the luck held through the night.

  * * *

  Later, looking back on it, Sierra wasn’t quite sure how they’d made it as far as they did before the girls had to stop. By that point, Joan was carrying Misha, and Sierra was carrying Joan’s backpack, which was heavy. She made sure they were well hidden and turned on the flashlight again, long enough to spread out her thin sleeping bag for the two girls. She and Joan lay on the forest floor, tired enough not to care about that, and Joan pulled out a spare shirt to use as a pillow. Sierra let herself doze but never fell entirely asleep, keeping an ear out for the sound of any other humans. When she heard the first bird stir, she woke them and got them on the road again.

  By the time they passed the highway to the south of town—there was still no one guarding it even this far out—it was well past noon. There was no sign of Dev, though she thought the chance of meeting up with him was slim. She apologized to Joan but said they had another several miles of cross-country hiking to do before sunset. No food, but thanks to her refilling the bottles at their sink, they had enough water.

  Misha was whining by then, and Sierra felt like whining herself. Emily stayed mute. Joan was as encouraging as she could be, and Sierra appreciated how patient she was with her kids, a kind mother who could summon up patience though she was tired, and hungry, and frightened, and headed into the unknown. Whatever anger Sierra had been harboring for her about her not protecting Emily from what happened evaporated. It must have broken her heart to not be able to keep her girls safe.

  They made it to the main road that led to their own neighborhood, and Sierra risked letting them walk up it until they were at the area where the car was parked. She wasn’t sure they had another hour of bushwhacking in them, and she was working on no sleep. It was twilight by the time she turned for the car. She whistled a warning to Dev as she approached.

  When she saw him march out of the woods toward her, she nearly dropped to her knees in relief. She’d been afraid that he’d gone looking for her and gotten himself into trouble because of her. “Dev,” she said, her voice shaking with that relief.

  “What the hell have you been doing?” He was really pissed off.

  She couldn’t blame him. “Shh. I brought people. Don’t scare them.”

  “What?” He was up in her face now, and though she couldn’t see him well, she could feel the anger radiating off him. She wanted to hug him but was afraid he’d push her to the ground if she tried.

  “The little girl. The one from earlier. And her mom and sister.” She flipped on the flashlight and pointed it at them. They had stopped and the two girls were clinging to the mother, exhausted but still managing to find enough energy to be afraid. Emily looked like she might sprint away at any moment. “It’s okay,” she said to them. “This is a friend. My friend. Dev, this is Joan and Emily and Misha.”

  Dev was breathing hard from his anger, but his next words were not loud. “Pastor,” he said, by way of greeting. He’d never sounded so much like his fath
er.

  “Just Joan, please.”

  “Joan, then. I’m sorry if I scared your kids just now, but I need to talk to Sierra for a minute. If it gets loud, it has nothing to do with any of you. Just wait here, okay?” And so saying, he grabbed Sierra by the wrist and dragged her back to the car.

  “Dev, I’m sorry.”

  “Get inside. I can yell in there.” He slid into the passenger seat.

  She opened the driver’s door. “You’re not a yeller.”

  “I’ve changed in the last twenty-four hours.” He yanked open the door. “Get in.”

  “Okay, okay,” she said. She dropped her pack on the ground and moaned with relief when she sat. “Talk slowly. I didn’t sleep last night, and I may not be thinking straight enough to understand otherwise.”

  “I’ll say you aren’t thinking straight!” He pounded the dash with a fist. “First taking the shot at those guys, and now this?”

  “I couldn’t let them stay there. I couldn’t let that keep happening to her. To Emily.”

  “That’s not our business. We solved the problem she had yesterday. Now it’s their turn to make the solution permanent.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible.” She told him what Joan had said about the town. “She’s defending them with a steak knife against rifles. And besides, we need more people to defend our place.”

  “Soldiers!” he yelled. “We need more trained soldiers, not two little kids.”

  “I bet you could shoot really well at ten or twelve.”

  “Damn it, Sierra!” he said.

  “I couldn’t, Dev. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t live with the thought of them getting hurt like that any more. I wasn’t going to sleep last night anyway for worrying about it. I’m not sure I’d have ever slept right again. You know?”

  He said nothing. Then he sighed deeply. “Well, it’s done. At least you weren’t going to get some boyfriend or something like that.”

  “Of course not!” She was shocked he’d think that of her.

  “We can’t change it now.”

  “And we’re all alive.”

  “I doubt I’ll live long. You turned me into an old man. I’m going to die of old age in about a week now.”

  She laughed, relieved that he wasn’t yelling any more.

  “It’s not funny.”

  She didn’t point out that he was the one who had made a joke of it first. “I know. I’ll take whatever punishment everyone decides I deserve, and without a word of complaint. I’ll cook, I’ll clean bathrooms, I’ll do all the shit work I hate doing and nothing but that if you all want.”

  “You’re lucky you have your dad and not mine. I’d hate to think what my father would do to me if I pulled something like this.”

  “I know,” she said, and she did. “I’m lucky to have Pilar. And these girls are lucky to have us, Dev. You know it’s the right thing to do. I know you. You’re a good guy. You’ll be glad this happened once you calm down.”

  “You realize, don’t you, that you may have triggered their coming up to find us? The men in Payson? The invaders?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “That’s just it. You don’t think.”

  She felt ashamed. “No.”

  “You just go on your feelings.”

  “I guess I do.”

  “Think more,” he said, and he pushed open the door of the car. After he was out, he leaned back in. “I’ve been seeing the dog, but she won’t come near me. Definitely a girl dog. And I managed to get the battery back in myself.”

  “Wow.” It was pretty heavy.

  “Anger lent me strength,” he said.

  Sierra was too tired to feel much emotional turmoil over this, but she suspected she would tomorrow. And if she had triggered the Payson invaders coming up to find them, she’d feel guilt for as long as she lived—which might not be long if there were forty-five of them with guns. She climbed back out of the car, promptly tripped over her backpack, opened the trunk and put it in, and then went back to the family.

  When she turned on the flashlight, she jerked back in surprise. The dog was there, and she was right with them, wagging her tail, leaning against Emily. Misha was on her knees petting her, and laughing when she got a doggy kiss.

  Another unforeseen benefit to bringing the girls here. She wouldn’t mention it to Dev though. He was right. She had acted without thinking, and she hadn’t let him be part of her decision (because he would have said no, an inner voice insisted), and he had every right to be angry. If it brought retribution on them, it would be all her fault.

  But there was no way the invaders in town would know where the attack had come from. It could be anywhere and anyone. She just wished there were more roads out of town for them to hunt along.

  Dev said, “If you can get the dog in the car, I’ll wait here while you drive them back.”

  “No, that’s okay. We can all fit.”

  “She likes the kids. She’s most afraid of me for some reason. Let her sit with them in the back seat. I’ll be fine here until you get back.”

  “I drank all the water I had, or I’d leave you some. I’m sorry.”

  “It won’t be a long wait. Drive them straight up the hill, leave them with my mother, and come right back for me. I’ll be here. If I’m asleep, don’t drive over me, for God’s sake.”

  The packs fit in the trunk easily. The dog in the back seat, not so much. But she had attached herself to the girls, and with a lot of coaxing, and everyone else standing far back from the car, Misha enticed her in.

  Sierra drove up the hill, headlights off. The girls would have fallen asleep but for the dog, who was nervous about being trapped inside a strange vehicle and wouldn’t settle down. “It won’t be long,” Sierra said to the girls and the dog. She checked the charge of the car. Still charged with enough juice to get her back to Dev and home. At the road that led to the neighborhood where Dev had been shot at, she gunned the car.

  “So you live up here?” Joan said.

  “A bit farther, yeah.”

  “And the boy you were talking to, the angry one, I’ve seen him, I think.”

  “His family is Christian. He said he knew Emily from some Teens for Christ thing.”

  “Had to be Easter. It was the first time she was a teen.”

  “She’s thirteen? Looks younger.”

  “In January.”

  Sierra glanced in the rearview mirror, but she couldn’t see the girl. “And Dev isn’t angry, really. He’s a good guy. He’s frustrated with me, and I totally understand why. He’ll forgive me quickly. Just watch.”

  “I’ve had my fill of angry men.”

  “I imagine. You’ll like my dad. Pilar Crocker.”

  “You said.”

  “Pilar almost never raises his voice. Not in anger. Dev’s father is a little bit harder of a man. Arch Quinn.”

  “Don’t know him.”

  “I think they’re Baptists or something. Sorry, I don’t know much about religion.”

  “You weren’t raised in a church?”

  “We have a kind of vague animism or paganism, I guess you could say.”

  “A lot of that going around.”

  “Sorry. I don’t want to argue about it. I’m just not a believer.”

  “I’m not sure I am any more either.” She sounded sad.

  Sierra didn’t have to think very hard to understand why that might be. “Anyway. There’s a third man on our block, Curt Henry. He’s a little scary-looking—might be to the girls—but also a stand-up kind of guy. He saved my life.”

  A moment later, Joan yawned. “Sorry. I need to rest. Is there a bed where we’re headed?”

  “There is.” She considered telling her a couple had died in it just over two weeks ago, but decided not to, not while the girls were listening. “And there’s another adult woman, Kelly Quinn. I’m going to turn you three over to her while I go back for Dev. She’ll get you settled.”

  They drove the rest o
f the way in silence. Sierra pulled right up to the downed log that blocked the view of their road from casual eyes. She got out and whistled, then said, “It’s me, Sierra.” She switched on the flashlight and aimed it at the ground.

  Curt Henry appeared in the dim light. “Your parents are going to be so relieved.”

  “Dev’s not with me.”

  “Oh no.”

  “No, no, sorry. Didn’t mean to worry you. It’s nothing bad. He’s fine. I’ll go get him now. This is Joan Kershaw. Her daughters Emily and Misha. And, um, she-dog who so far doesn’t have a name. She doesn’t like men, it seems.”

  “Seems you’ve been busy.”

  “A little.”

  “They from one of the neighborhoods you checked out up here?”

  “Payson. I’m sorry, I have to get Dev. He’s mad enough already.”

  “What about?”

  “Long story. We can tell it tomorrow.”

  “I’ll go get Kelly.”

  “Thanks.” She rested the flashlight, still on, on top of the log.

  Not until he had walked far away did the dog jump out of the car. “Okay, shy one,” Sierra said to it. “I’m going to have to touch you now.”

  “Don’t hurt her!” Misha said.

  “I need to get her over that log. And you too. In fact, we’ll start with you. Here, I’ll make a step with my hands, and your mom can spot you, make sure you don’t fall. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, but she didn’t sound certain.

  “That’s my brave girl,” Joan said.

  Emily was hesitant to get close, but Sierra made gentling sounds to her. No words, because she was running out of words—just a friendly sort of hum. She went up on the top of the log too.

  Joan needed a shove to her rear. And then it was the dog’s turn, but she kept dancing away from Sierra’s attempt to catch her. “Think you can jump that?” she said to the dog.

  The dog looked at her, then at the log. Misha said from the far side, “C’mon, girl.”

  The dog paced back and forth a few times, then she backed up and took a running leap. As with Joan, Sierra had to give her a boost on the butt to get her all the way on top of the log. The muscles under Sierra’s hands twitched, trying to throw off the touch, and Sierra let go as soon as she could. The dog jumped down alone. Joan was the last to slip over.