Kris had rolled up the sleeves on her shirt. The sun beat down on them, which was unusual for October. Another teacher called Kris and motioned for her to hurry. She trusted Sara to keep Tucker safe, even if she did allow things that Kris wasn’t quite comfortable with, and if they didn’t play the zombie game... “Okay, if that would be easiest on you.” She didn’t like going back on her word, but she also was told no children were allowed at this meeting. Times like now it sure would be nice to have a husband to call for help.
“Great. We’ll see you when you get there.” Sara smiled.
“Thank you.” Kris turned toward the field and called Tucker over.
“Yeah, Mommy?” He panted as he arrived.
“Sweetie, they called a quick staff meeting that I have to go to.”
“It’s not Monday, though.”
“I know. It’s a special meeting, but Vinny’s mom said you could hang out at their house until I’m finished.”
“Yes!” He turned to his friend who still made his way from the field. “Vinny, I get to come over!”
“I’ll see you soon.” She kissed her son on the head. “You be good for Sara.”
“I will. We always return to each other.”
“We always return to each other.”
The other teachers already had assembled. They whispered together in little groups while everyone waited for their principal. He had been new this year and was not a favorite among the staff. Mrs. Robbins, Tucker’s teacher, called her over to an empty seat next to her.
“Do you know what this is all about?” Kris asked, a fluttering making her hands shake.
“Nope. Probably some budget meeting or something.” She shrugged. “Have you thought any more about what I suggested?”
“In truth, no,” she said, unable to meet the woman’s eyes. “My husband and I want him to stay with his peers.”
“He’s so bright, though, Kris. He’s going to be bored, and you know what happens to children who aren’t challenged enough.”
“I appreciate your concern. We supplement quite a bit at home.” Kris did her best to smile. Mrs. Robbins had been on her case all year to request Tucker skip a grade. Kris had known he was intelligent from an early age, and she and her husband had agreed they wanted him to stay with his peers at school.
“How long has your husband been gone this time? What does he do again?”
Luckily, the principal walked in right then, and with the whole room going silent, Kris didn’t have to skate around that question. She let out a breath, but sucked it back in when she saw her boss. The man’s face had no color, his eyes glared red, and he moved as if he had aged fifty years.
“Thank you all for coming.” The principal spoke barely louder than a whisper.
It seemed as if the whole room, Kris included, held their breaths.
“I wish I didn’t have to share this news with you.” He hung his head for a moment. When he lifted it, his Adam’s apple bobbed rapidly. “I’m sure all of you have been following the government shutdown.”
Many nodded their heads and murmured assents. Kris, though, only knew tidbits she had picked up in the staff break room. She didn’t follow the news or politics. The depressing state of their country only added stress onto an already stressful life. Besides, she feared learning of her husband’s death through the news or finding out whatever it was he actually did for a living.
She knew the government had a shutdown, but didn’t quite know the extent or how it might affect her. It could affect her husband’s checks, which may be why they hadn’t been depositing in their account over the last couple months. Yet who knew which branch of government paid him...or if it was government at all. Still, it was easier thinking the loss of income was due to a shutdown rather than the alternative.
“Today things got worse.” He swallowed and looked down at his hands twisting in front of him. “You will not be receiving your checks tomorrow, and as it looks now, schools will begin closing in the coming weeks, if not days.”
The uproar in the room deafened Kris. No check? She had been pinching pennies the last couple of weeks. After her husband’s monthly deposits had stopped, she had to dip into their joint savings. Affording the mortgage payment for the house and big chunk of property that he had insisted on buying quickly sapped up the meager amount and that was with letting go of things like the grounds keeper, cable, and other non-necessities.
She knew they had some in IRAs and other money market accounts, but had hoped she would make it without pulling them out. Now, it looked like she would have to go to the bank and pay the monstrous fees to do so. Otherwise, without money coming in, she wouldn’t have enough to last the rest of the month.
The room closed in around her, the chaos darkening into a muted background as her own dilemma sucked her in. How would she feed Tucker? How long could she stay in the house without making payments before they kicked them out?
Kris wanted to flee this doomsday meeting, but the questions kept coming no matter how many times her principal answered with I don’t know. Panic lined everyone’s voices.
Maybe her husband had been right all along. Kris struggled to keep in the tears, and her throat seized up.
The meeting carried on for over an hour with just as many unanswered questions. Her head pounded and swirled with what all this meant, not only for her immediate situation, but for life as they knew it. Snippets of long-ago conversations with her husband filtered in.
She had used to love talking about what they would do in the aftermath of disaster. To her, it had been a game that passed the time, not something they seriously needed to consider. After having Tucker, she had more than enough to preoccupy her, and the constant doomsday planning her husband fixated on got on her nerves. Maybe she should have listened more.
When the meeting finally dispersed, she drove the two minutes from school to pick up Tucker. Yet she sat in the driveway for several minutes, watching her hands shake on the steering wheel and feeling her heart flutter with so much force she felt out of breath. Where was her husband when she needed him the most?
She sat there long enough that Tucker came out of the house and toward the car himself. Sara waved from the door. Kris lifted a hand in acknowledgement, thankful she wouldn’t have to answer any questions. She took a few deep breaths and plastered on a smile as Tucker climbed into his seat.
“Hey, Sweetie. Did you have a good time?”
“Yeah, Vinny got a new game. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have zombies.” Excitement bubbled from him.
“That’s good.” How she wished she could just revel in this moment of her son’s sweet innocence rather than consciously forcing herself to focus on the conversation.
“Yeah, it was so lifelike, like the animals were alive. We had to hunt to provide food for our people.”
Kris bit her cheeks. At this point, maybe zombies would have been better.
“Speaking of food, we have to stop by the grocery store.” If her husband was right, soon they would be closing, too. She hated the panicked feeling flooding her. Knowing that she based her decisions on her husband’s nonsense made it even worse. Thinking that he might actually be right scared the pants off of her.
“Can we get some ice cream?”
“Not tonight, Sweetie.” She heard his disappointed groan, but she would have to pay close attention to how much she spent and only buy things that she could extend out as much as possible.
In the store, she scanned the rows of food, building sustaining menus in her mind. “Mommy, why are you getting such big bags of rice and beans? Are you replenishing Daddy’s barrels?”
His innocent question made her laugh. She had forgotten about all the barrels of freeze-dried food they had stored in the bunker. The once hated and despised underground shelter now filled her with joy. With that food alone, she and Tucker could eat for a year or more.
She kissed her son on the head. “Thank you, Tuck. On second thought, let’s get that ice cream.”
“Mommy, are you okay?” He raised his small hand to her head. “You’re acting kind of strange.”
“I’ll be all right. Everything will be okay.”
~*~
Blake watched headquarters through his night-vision binoculars. He had seen two of his team go in, and in over four hours, they had not come back out. Normally his team would go there sporadically and only long enough to be debriefed and released.
In his locker, he had extra clothes, his civilian ID, ammunition, and, most importantly, his wedding ring. He needed those things. Yet, with what he had overheard earlier in the night, an uneasy feeling settled in his stomach, and he hesitated to strut into a place he had once thought as safe.
With all the hours staying hidden, his mind had wrapped around more skills he needed to teach his son. Time became of the essence, and he had been gone too long. The little black book he kept in his cargo pants’ pocket felt tattered as he pulled it out. He flipped past the full pages of the book to the few empty pages left. Feeling for the pen in his pocket and trying to write by night-vision goggles, he scribbled his words across the page. Hopefully, his handwriting still made sense.
Movement at the back entrance caught his attention. Blake quickly and quietly stored the book and pen. A truck backed up to the door, and shortly after, the door opened. Three men deposited two hefty bags into the back of the vehicle. Adrenaline pricked his chest. The two bags looked an awful lot like body bags.
Blake’s heart thundered as his mind raced. He felt as if he had been hit with a sledge hammer, sucking in air through a collapsed straw. He knew those bodies being thrown into the back of that truck were the men from his squad. He knew it as much as he knew he had to disappear this instant.
An animal scurried by, probably a rabbit by its speed and the flash of white that streaked into the brush in front of him. Blake’s fists squeezed into tight balls as he held his breath. The sound and movement had alerted the men at the truck.
Blake froze as the men watched where he sat hidden behind the brush. He didn’t want to end up like his friends. He couldn’t. The survival of his son and wife depended on it. Clenching his teeth, he steeled himself to do what had to be done to get home to them. He didn’t enjoy killing, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
The men spoke, but the words faded into unintelligible sounds by the time they reached his ears. Flashlights lit the area around Blake, but he had hidden well. When the sound of a nine-millimeter cocking echoed, a primal urgency rushed through Blake. He had overstayed his welcome.
The men spread out and began methodically making their way into the forest. After the next sweep of light passed him, Blake disappeared into the night.
With quiet, practiced feet, he crept out of ear shot and sight of headquarters. Once in the clear, he picked up his pace and jogged through the trees. A weight lifted off his shoulders, something that seemed ironic when the world was about to end...or at least how the human race knew it. Yet, knowing that his life of working for the government was finished for now let him breathe in the fresh mountain air a little deeper.
A wry grin pulled at the corners of his mouth, and the sensation left an awkward feeling in him. How long had it been since he had smiled?
Too long. Probably since he last saw his son. For a five-year-old, he had quite the knack for picking up skills. Wait, not five any more. He had missed a birthday a few months back. Blake’s smile faltered. He had missed another birthday.
He quickened his pace in grim determination. He would not miss another one. The promise repeated over and over as the sound of his heart thundered in his ears.
At the edge of a clearing, Blake stopped and craned his neck to listen for any pursuit. The only sound he heard was the blood pumping through him. Adjusting his night-vision goggles, he scanned the perimeter. Once he deemed himself alone, he made his way to where he had hidden his Jeep in a thick stand of manzanita trees.
He had no idea how long he had to make it the couple hundred miles south he needed, and he sure didn’t want to get trapped in a city between here and there. He pulled out a map and double-checked the route he had mentally planned out on the jog over. It would take him a full day to drive there. He pulled the night-vision goggles off his head and rubbed the spots where the elastic had squeezed.
A faint glow grew over the mountains to the east. He had an hour until sunrise. The Jeep started with a rumble, and a quickening vibrated through him. The event he had been preparing for was upon them, and he was ready...well, almost. He needed to get to his family before the attack, from wherever it may arrive.
~*~
Kris rinsed off the last dish in the sink and set it in the rack. She wiped her hands on the dish towel and then scanned her home. Everything sparkled. The house felt eerily quiet, and for about the tenth time, she regretted telling Tucker he could stay the night at Vinny’s.
He had been so excited for his first-ever sleep over, so she had swallowed her own trepidation. She couldn’t allow her fear to hamper the natural progression of her son’s social growth. Yet, she found herself too distracted for her normal lazy evening with a good book. What would Tuck do if he had a nightmare like he did so often?
Her fretting continued, keeping the need to stay busy a must. Since his father had left this last time, Tucker had crawled into bed with her on a nightly basis. What would he do when he woke up at Vinny’s and she wasn’t there?
She grabbed the cleaning rag and spray and headed to the bathroom. Maybe she hadn’t cleaned all the way around the toilet.
The abrupt sound of a knock at the door made her jump and cover her mouth to squelch a scream. She wasn’t a screamer, but someone at her front door was the last thing she expected. How had someone gotten past the gate?
Only Tucker and she knew the code to open it. About six months ago, she had all the locks changed and entered a new code. Her anger at her absent husband had spurred the actions on.
She slipped along the walls toward the front door and wrapped her hand around the bat she kept there. Her thoughts immediately flew to the pistol her husband had made her keep, even though she detested guns. Fear pricked her chest. The solid wood of the bat felt reassuring enough in her hand as she stood on tippy-toes to look through the peephole.
Darkness greeted her. The automatic light hadn’t turned on. Fear surged through her as the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.
The sound of a second knock from the other side of the door had her swallowing another scream. She couldn’t see a dang thing out there. For a moment she thought about acting as if she wasn’t home, and then the knob started to turn. Slowly at first, and then frantically as if the intruder was frustrated it hadn’t opened.
Kris threw herself against the wall and gulped for breath. The porch lights. Maybe if she flickered the lights, they would go away. She reached a tentative hand across the door and flipped on the switch, but nothing happened. Of course, the bulb had burnt out, hence the light not turning on automatically.
Again she thought of the gun as the intruder began fiddling with the lock. It was too far to the bedroom and too time-consuming to open the safe to get the gun and then find the bullets in the hidden compartment in her closet. As her heart pounded and lips trembled, she sent up a silent prayer of gratitude that Tucker wasn’t there.
Gripping the bat tighter, she scanned her entry way for a better weapon as the clicking in the door produced sounds like the lock giving way to the intruder’s picking. Her purse caught her eye. The Taser.
The door handle clicked as the lock gave way and a satisfied sigh sounded from the intruder. Kris acted fast, reached across for her purse, and in one swift movement grabbed the Taser as the door opened slowly, carefully.
A short-haired head emerged out of the crack in the doorway. The man moved cautiously. Just another inch or two and his vulnerable neck would show.
Kris’s hands shook as she grasped the Taser in a white-knuckled grip. She licked her lips and slowl
y, soundlessly, let the air out of her lungs.
Right as the intruder’s neck appeared, she thrust the Taser into the sensitive skin and pulled the trigger.
“Agh!” the man snarled as he dropped to the ground.
Kris raised her arm with the bat and aimed at the man’s head when something about the pained voice broke through her all-consuming fear. Yet the bat had its momentum as it swung down towards the sandy-haired man.
At the last moment, a massive hand shot out and caught the bat before it hit his head.
Kris’s eyes shot wide open as she froze.
The man moved his hand to lower the bat, revealing a steel-cold green gaze.
“Blake?” she whispered.
~*~
Blake’s neck burned and his hand ached from stopping the bat before it smashed his head in. Kris had quite the power behind that swing. His blood pumped and pulsed as he fought the urge to return the attack. Letting out a shaking breath, he met the eyes of the one woman who meant everything to him.
“Hello, Kris,” he rasped out.
Her blue eyes opened wide in surprise. The pulse in her neck throbbed rapidly. She still held the other end of the bat in one hand and the Taser in the other. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. She had done well.
After a few blinks, her eyes softened, as did her grip on the weapons. The bat now hung limp at her side, and she thumbed the Taser to the off position. Blake watched her every movement and yet never let go of her gaze.
“That’s quite the welcome home,” he said as he forced a chuckle out. Truth be told, he had no idea what to expect, yet it surely wasn’t this.
He saw the emotions warring in her eyes. She had told him before he left this time that if he went, he might as well not return. Her words had been said in anger, but he knew he had surpassed her limits. His only hope now was that she would be calm enough to listen to reason.
As her eyes turned darker and stormier, he knew he had no such luck.
“What kind of welcome did you expect breaking into my home?”
Grant Us Mercy (Book 1): Grant Us Mercy Page 2