The Lucky Ones (Evergreen Book 3)

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Uh huh. First, I wanted food. When Tyler got sick and had to go away, I wanted you to be my new mommy… and you did. An’ then, I wanted Dad to be my dad, and he did. An’ then, I wanted Maddie and Jon to like me.” She scrunched her face in thought. “When we went to the pool, I just wanted my clothes to stay dry.” She grinned. “An’ they did!”

  The words ‘wanted you to be my new mommy’ stabbed Harper right in the feels. She gathered Lorelei in a fierce hug and rocked her. The girl squealed in delight, squeezing her back with all she had.

  “Lore, I need you to do me a really big favor, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Stay dressed when you’re outside. Taking your clothes off doesn’t make wishes come true. It makes you cold and you’ll get sick. I don’t want you to get sick, okay? What Bucky said was a mean lie. Do you understand?”

  “Uh huh.” She stared at her for a long few minutes, the most serious expression ever on her angelic face. “If my wish didn’t work, why did you wanna keep me and be my mommy?”

  “Because.” Harper brushed a hand over the girl’s cheek, smiling at her. “You needed me and as soon as I saw you, I knew I had to take care of you.”

  “You wanted to? The wish didn’t make you?”

  “Nope.” Harper shook her head. “No magic. I wanted to.”

  Lorelei leapt back into a hug, sniffling. “You’re really not gonna throw me away?”

  Tears rolled down Harper’s face. “No, never.”

  The group of sub-ten-year-olds all watched them in silence. A few teared up. Donna looked about ready to cry as well.

  Harper and Lorelei clung to each other for a moment, then the girl leaned back with a worried gasp.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Harper.

  Lorelei twisted to peer out over the farm. “If Bucky lied an’ takin’ my dress off don’t make my wishes happen, we could be shotted at.”

  “I’m not going to let anyone shoot you. The militia is here, too. And this farm isn’t full of corn. We can see all the way to the other side. If bad people show up, we can stop them.”

  “Okay.” Lorelei returned to her usual calm, smiling self in an instant. “Miss Donna’s teaching us about chickens.”

  “You should listen to her then.” Harper grinned, then led her back into the class group.

  Lorelei eagerly rejoined her peers. Donna stared at Harper, who gave her a thumbs-up and tried to project the message ‘all back to normal’ with an expression. Once the woman resumed teaching about chickens, Harper sighed at the ground. These kids are all traumatized. They ought to be watching cartoons or playing video games or having fun… not worrying about random bad guys showing up to shoot them.

  Again, she thought about all the drills at her old school. Kids had already been terrified of random people showing up with guns. For a brief moment, Harper felt as if humanity deserved to be nuked, but pushed that thought out of her head. Nothing could ever possibly justify what happened. Seeing a group of grubby five-to-nine-year-olds in dingy clothes all being so quiet and serious while Donna explained egg collection broke her heart. And of all those kids damaged by whatever they’d seen during the nuclear strike and its aftermath, she couldn’t help but feel even worse for Lorelei.

  Despite not wanting to think about it, Harper kept dwelling on what sorts of awful things that girl had witnessed before the war. Her mother had clearly been a drug addict of some kind, probably with a string of physically abusive men in her life. She’d no doubt watched her mother use her body to get what she wanted, and tried to emulate that without a true understanding of why her mother undressed. Harper thanked the universe that the girl remained innocent. Except for a near miss with starving on the street, the apocalypse had improved Lorelei’s life.

  Killing that bitch of a mother she had is wrong, but I might just punch her in the nose if I ever see her.

  21

  Staying Positive

  After the ‘school day’ ended and the kids left the farm, Harper took them home to change before going to the pool. Nice weather, unusually warm for early June following nuclear war, prompted all three kids to plead with her about going swimming. Harper again decided to join them in the water.

  She left the Mossberg at home, bringing her .45 handgun, which she could conceal in a towel… or leave with Sadie on lifeguard duty.

  Oh, crap. She’s too hurt to do that. Would they have closed the pool without a lifeguard? Oh, who am I kidding? It’s not like anyone’s following safety codes anymore.

  Her worries about dealing with disappointed kids faded when they found Roy Ellis at the pool standing guard in swim trunks. She paused to chat with him for a few minutes. The former cop with paramedic training had evidently also qualified as a lifeguard back in his college days. Harper left her .45 with him, then found a nearby lounge chair that she used to store her T-shirt and jeans after taking them off, exposing her skimpy bathing suit underneath.

  “Gah! I’m blind!” screamed Renee. “Retinas melting.”

  Grace, standing beside her, burst out laughing.

  Harper turned, smirking. Her friend, a short distance away, crossed her arms in front of her face as if standing in the path of a solar death beam. “Very funny. You’re on the pale side, too yanno.”

  Grace continued to snicker.

  Madison pulled her dress off, revealing her dark blue swimsuit.

  “Eep. You’re both reflective!” Renee cracked up. “You two should go stand at the solar farm, you’d double the power output.”

  “Harp?” Madison looked up at her. “Will I get in trouble for giving her the finger?”

  “Nope.”

  Both Harper and Madison gave Renee the bird, which only made her laugh more.

  “Seriously, though, you guys should be careful. Don’t get too much sun.” Renee checked the cloth bag she’d taken to carrying around. “I did score a tube of sunblock from the QM. If you’re gonna be outside a lot for the militia, you might start needing a hat or something to keep the sun off your face.”

  “Maybe…” Harper shrugged. “I’ve never been much of a hat person.”

  After the sun cream made the rounds, Harper joined her siblings, friends, a bunch of other kids, and several townspeople in the pool. Swimming filled her head with memories of going to Christina’s house. Mr. Menendez had been a VP or something for a big company. They had a nice in-ground pool. Ever since Harper met Christina in like fifth grade, they’d spent lots of time in that water during the summer months.

  Distracted by daydreams of pool parties, barbecues, or hanging out at Christina’s place, Harper didn’t notice the volleyball coming until after it bounced off her face. She blinked, stunned, not sure what happened until Madison’s laughter snapped her out of the fog. No one attempted any sort of organized water polo, just swatted the ball around at random trying to keep it from hitting the water for as long as possible. Harper joined in, allowing herself a little levity… but not too much.

  If she surrendered completely to having fun, she knew something bad would happen in retaliation. She felt guilty enough for swimming in a pool after nuclear war and trying to pretend that any semblance of normality still existed in the world. At least seeing Madison, Jonathan, and Lorelei happy prevented her from giving in to grief and sadness over Christina. She had no idea if her friend remained alive or not. Fair bet her house in Lakewood was off limits, possibly destroyed, probably ruined. No one would ever have fun at that pool again.

  Eventually, she’d had enough stretching for the volleyball and drifted away to relax. She didn’t swim around so much as stand shoulder deep in water or float. Sore muscles from the vicious cramping that hit her the other day kept her stiff and uninterested in moving all that much. The water proved to be a little too cold to fully enjoy, but the unusual warmth of the day made it tolerable. Realizing she continually looked around at the distant cornstalks for threats and kept one eye on her weapon bundled in a towel beside Roy reminded her that her life had becom
e the exact opposite of normal. That truth hung over her head like a black cloud.

  The world had changed.

  She had changed.

  Harper Cody shouldn’t be worrying about the fastest path to a lethal weapon or the best place to hide when bullets started flying. She probably shouldn’t even be in a bathing suit at all. Except for lame spy movies, a skimpy bikini with no shoes didn’t make for good apparel in a firefight. Then again, she had already killed a man while wearing a nightie, but he’d invaded her home in the middle of the night trying to abduct Mila who’d gone there to hide. Then again, according to Renee, showing that much skin would let Harper blind any would-be attackers.

  Eventually, she noticed Lorelei’s lips going blue, so she pulled the little one out of the water. After collecting her weapon from Roy, she sat on one of the lounge chairs to dry off. The girl chattered happily about how much fun she had in the water, and that she liked chickens. Then asked if chickens would want to go swimming, too. Harper laughed. At random, Lorelei started talking about the dolls Madison gave her. Apparently, two of them had become angry with the third for taking too many vitamins and always sleeping. They wanted her to stop taking vitamins.

  “Well,” said Harper. “She should stop taking so many vitamins if they make her sleep.”

  Lorelei nodded. “Yeah. Mommy used to take vitamins all the time, too. I told her ta stop, but she didn’t. Priscilla’s gonna stop. She likes her friends more than she likes her vitamins.”

  Oh, crap.

  “Mommy liked her vitamins.” Lorelei looked down.

  Harper pictured the woman injecting heroin or popping pills, and the girl walking in on her… some lame excuse about vitamins being taken as truth by an innocent mind. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t gotta be sorry.”

  “Lore?” Harper brushed a hand over the girl’s head. “Those weren’t vitamins. She had bad stuff that made her do bad things, like not pay attention to you. She didn’t like that stuff more than she liked you… she couldn’t help it.”

  “I know they’s not vitamins. Vitamins are eated and they taste like cherries. They’re not inna needles.” She shook off the gloom and grinned. “I’m happy you’re my mommy now.”

  Harper wrapped the girl in a towel. “Me, too.”

  Later that afternoon, Harper swung by the quartermaster’s while Carrie watched the kids. She picked up their weekly food allotment, which contained a fair amount of vegetables now that the farm had started producing some stuff, as well as a fresh loaf of Bobby’s bread. The clerk, Patricia Rivera, gossiped with her for a bit about Beth and Jaden’s upcoming baby as well as asking if Cliff and Carrie were a thing.

  How the heck does she know that?

  Pretty much everyone in Evergreen knew that telling Patricia anything basically amounted to the post-nuclear equivalent of a public Facebook post.

  Harper decided to err on the side of caution. “They’re friends. I mean, Cliff’s basically my Dad. Not like he’s going to tell me about his love life.”

  “Oh, that’s true. Well, I hope for your sake it works out. A kid needs two parents. Even if you’re not really a kid anymore. So, how’s it feel being a legal adult?”

  “It feels like Wednesday.”

  Patricia chuckled. “Yeah, you poor dear. Had to grow up fast. Oh, is it true they’re going to let the guy who shot that Parker boy stay in town?”

  “No. Wherever you’re getting your rumors from, you need to ask for a refund.” Harper whistled. “The guy’s a dentist. He didn’t actually shoot anyone. Just… wound up in that gang for protection I guess.” In hopes that the rumor system in Evergreen might stop people from randomly attacking the guy, she stepped aside out of the way of other people collecting their food, and spent a while clarifying exactly what happened, and that she believed the guy wasn’t any danger.

  Eventually, she headed home, packed away the food, and got started on a ‘Madison-approved’ meatless dinner: two cans of red beans, potatoes, carrots, peppers, onions, zucchini, a can of chicken broth, some water, and a box of butterfly pasta. She added the last of the paprika and garlic salt… perhaps the last of either she’d ever see in her lifetime, and sighed at the empty bottles.

  “Someday, stupid little things aren’t going to make me sad anymore. Who’d have ever thought the world would run out of crap like paprika? All the stuff we just got from stores…”

  She became acutely aware of the sanitary pad she’d put on after returning from the pool, mostly because the number sixty-two burned into her memory: all she had left. Things slowed down enough that she’d probably stop wearing it tomorrow and keep her fingers crossed next month’s ‘attack of the blood monster’ would give her a little more warning. She couldn’t afford to waste them, and dreaded the idea of pressing one into extended service no matter how nasty it felt to wear the same pad until it actually absorbed something.

  Regardless, her meager stash of pads and tampons would be long gone before her sisters competed for resources. What the heck would any of them do then? Spend four-to-six days constantly on the toilet? Women had to do something back in the old days, but what?

  “And I’m not really thinking about this while cooking, am I?” She sighed. “I’d give my left ovary for some real Starbucks.”

  The siblings, plus Mila, Becca, and Christopher, came running down the street. They invaded the backyard and proceeded to kick a ball around. Every time the thump of a foot on rubber happened, she looked up at the kitchen window over the sink and cringed. If they break a window, it’s going to stay broken forever.

  Possessed by the spirit of Mom, Harper leaned out the patio door. “Guys, be careful, okay? If you put that ball through a window, there’s no way to fix it anymore.”

  The kids all looked at her, pondered this, then nodded.

  Cliff returned home soon after and followed his nose to the kitchen. “Hey, that smells real good. What is it?”

  “Just veggies and beans with some pasta.”

  “Ahh. Can’t wait to dig in.”

  “Anything going on?”

  He took off his web belt, which held extra magazines for his AR-15 plus a handgun as well as some small tools, and hung it on a peg in the kitchen. “Deacon and Anna are going to take the van to that Army survivors’ camp in Eldorado Springs tomorrow.”

  “Oh?” She turned to look at him. “What for?”

  “Ned worked out a deal with them. We’re gonna bring them a bunch of vegetables and fish in trade for wire and electrical supplies.”

  She folded her arms. “The army has Humvees, right? Couldn’t they pick it up?”

  “They already dropped off the wire and such. Why do you think we have power?” He smiled. “Took the farm a bit to produce. We needed the power to make ice to pack the fish in so they survived the trip.”

  “If they’re on ice, aren’t they dead already?”

  “I meant survived as in not rotting to the point they can’t be eaten.”

  “Oh.”

  He approached the stove and lifted the lid to give it a sniff. “Nice. So, how did your day go?”

  “Not bad. Umm… Maybe I should tell you about this now while the kids are out of earshot.”

  “If the next words out of your mouth are ‘I’m pregnant,’ I make no promises about handling that well.”

  She laughed. “No. That’s not at all what I’m going to say. I think I found out why Lore’s always streaking around.”

  “It’s more than just her mother neglecting her?” He shot her a grim look. “Please don’t tell me it’s something dark.”

  “Not dark, just sad. Apparently, her mother had a boyfriend who she overheard say something about ‘all a girl has to do to get what she wants is take her clothes off.’ Lore was ‘making wishes,’ trying to get whatever she wanted.”

  “Oh, brother.” Cliff rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  Harper kicked the toe of her sneaker at the floor while explaining all the ‘wishes’ the girl had
made. “Guess I’m a teen mother after all. My parents would be so disappointed.”

  Cliff gave her side eye. “That’s humor, right?”

  “Yeah.” She smiled. “They’d be totally proud of me for taking care of her.”

  “So, I take it you’ve dealt with that particular issue?”

  “Hopefully.” On a whim, she added a couple shakes of black pepper to the pot, then talked about the rest of the day. When she got to visiting the pool, she again thought of Christina’s place, and consequently, her friends. “Hey, Dad? Do you think Deacon or Anna might be willing to look around the camp for my friends?”

  “I don’t see why they wouldn’t. Suppose it depends on exactly how bad of a shit show it is down there.” He paused, making an odd face.

  “What?”

  Cliff scratched his beard. “I’m trying to figure out if Eldorado Springs is an ‘up there’ or a ‘down there.’ It’s lower on account of not being in the mountains, but it’s also north of us.”

  “Hmm. I’d say up there even if it is at a lower elevation. What time are they leaving?”

  “Probably fairly early, but not too early. It’ll take time to load up the van.”

  She checked the food and found the pasta ready to go. “Okay. I’m gonna try to ask them in the morning. Food’s ready.”

  “Awesome. I’ll get the kids.”

  “Hey, Dad?”

  He paused with a hand on the patio door, looking at her.

  “What did women do for, umm… sanitary needs before they invented pads and tampons?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t wanna know.” Cliff cringed.

  “Why are guys always freaked out by that? You’re an Army Ranger and you’re flinching at girl talk?”

  “That, my dear, is one of the fundamental laws of the universe. We have our steak and football, you have pads and, umm… Tupperware parties.”