The Age of Hysteria: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (The Age of Embers Book 2)

by Ryan Schow

  After a few hours, when we’re heading back with our loot—of which there doesn’t seem to be enough—we see Xavier’s neighbors’ garage door opening up. The older couple sees us and comes out. Xavier greets them and they offer their condolences for Giselle.

  “Thank you,” Xavier says, his voice deepening to stifle the emotion. “Are you leaving?”

  The older woman, a kind looking woman who is most assuredly someone’s grandmother, says, “We’re headed to Nebraska to be with our son and his family. They have a farm in between Alliance and Hemingford just east of the 385.”

  “Well be careful,” Xavier says, “and watch the skies.”

  The woman’s husband looks at all the children and says, “Who are all these girls?”

  Eliana says, “They were part of a human trafficking ring. Your neighbor helped save them from some very bad men.”

  Awestricken and impressed, the old man nods his head and pulls a key off his key ring. He hands it to Xavier and says, “The house is yours, along with everything in it. Make sure these girls have what they need.”

  Eliana steps forward and gives the man a hug, and then the woman. She doesn’t know them, but it’s hard not to feel the love for people with this sort of generosity.

  “We appreciate your kindness,” Eliana says, sweet as pie, not a killer at all.

  The woman holds Eliana in a longer-than-usual hug and says, “We have several rooms, all with beds, and there’s some firewood under a tarp in the backyard.”

  When the couple drives off, Xavier says, “Well let’s head inside, see what’s what.”

  The house is not exactly the motherlode in terms of food and things like toilet paper, soap and shampoos, but there are beds, bathrooms, and enough food for a few of the girls to eat a few meals. Plus they have two real fireplaces and enough wood to keep the place warm for several days if the weather turns severe.

  One of the girls who looks to be the same age as Carolina asks if she and a few of the girls can stay there overnight. The adults all look at each other and nod.

  “It’s no problem,” Eliana says. “So long as Xavier has the key and you thoroughly lock up at night.”

  After the girls begin readying the house for the night, Xavier and I look at each other with questionable expressions.

  “You okay with this?” I ask.

  “Are you?”

  “No.”

  Adeline says, “If they were held against their will by men, and then supposedly freed, wouldn’t you want them to have a night or two of freedom?”

  Xavier and I shrug our shoulders. We just want them to be safe is all.

  “Wake up, you two,” she says.

  If what they need to do to prove they’re truly free of their previous circumstances is sleep alone—if this helps them emotionally readjust and start the healing process—then I’m all for it.

  Apparently X is, too. No surprise there.

  Like I said, women are smarter than men. We just break things better.

  The girl who’s Carolina’s age, a homely looking seventeen year old named Rafaela, takes charge right away. When she and Eliana’s niece return to the house, it’s to give Xavier the key.

  All of us just stare at her, but Eliana takes the time to tell her what has been on all of our minds. “If you’re going to be in charge of them, you’re in charge of their lives as well as your own. Xavier is next door, but he is your up-line resource, your backup in case of emergency. Don’t be prideful. Protect yourself and your girls. And if you truly want to take charge, you need to learn how to survive with the rest of us. That means you need to learn to defend yourself.”

  What I don’t tell her—what she will learn soon enough if she doesn’t get killed in these next few days, or freeze to death in the storm now settling over the city—is that learning to survive in a situation like this means learning to kill.

  It isn’t hard learning to point a gun at a person and pull the trigger. That’s easy. What makes survival in a lawless, war time scenario near impossible for normal people is the idea that to live, others may have to die. There is also the need to disappear from the crowds. The problem with going off the reservation is that you can let your guard down, become complacent. Complacency breeds death.

  I know this being an undercover agent. The second you let your guard down, good luck staying alive.

  “I can do this,” Rafaela says. “I want to do this.”

  “You need to get a gun,” I tell her. Then to Xavier: “And you need to teach her to shoot if she’s going to do this.”

  “I will.”

  “Have you got everything you need to hold you over for the night?” I ask.

  “We should be fine for a few days,” X says.

  He says this then something crosses through his eyes. He looks like he’s got something on his mind. I think I know what it is, but it’s up to him to ask. He asks right away.

  “What’s next?” he says, solemn. “I mean, I know you have to get your kids, but what about after that?”

  “We have to hope the drones don’t hit yours or Fire’s homes first,” Ice says. “Then we need to ghost out, blow this pop-stand before we can’t.”

  He nods his head. He’s thinking of leaving Giselle.

  “You okay with that?” I ask, knowing he just buried his wife in the backyard to be close to her. I can’t even begin to calculate his grief.

  Looking at Adeline, seeing my whole world in her, I start to feel two very big things. One, I remember from a deeply emotional place how much I love her, and two, I fear for her safety.

  That’s when the third thing creeps in.

  I feel regret.

  This is a sick, draining feeling. What I put her through…even if I didn’t mean to, or if I somehow got myself trapped working undercover…I’m feeling it.

  Now that I’m back in Adeline’s presence, my regret naturally turns to compassion, and then a sadness as deep as my resentment. To think of what she had to go through, being a single mom and married widower, so to speak, gives me perspective.

  I don’t know how military wives do this.

  I mean, to think about a person living with the idea that while you’re eating or watching TV or getting ready, your spouse could be lying dead in a ditch, his throat cut, or his body riddled with bullets...how do you get your head around that day after day?

  I couldn’t.

  If the roles were reversed, I’d be a wreck.

  She looks completely different to me now. She’s no longer my adversary, not a woman who felt abandoned so she turned to another man. This is the mother of my kids, the love of my life and a very strong woman. The shift ignites in me a love that’s working to stamp down all this hostility, an enmity that’s grown wildly out of control lately.

  “What?” Adeline says, looking at me with a hesitant smile.

  “I was just thinking,” I say.

  “Tell me about it on the way home,” she says. “Are you ready?”

  “I am.”

  Ice and Eliana tell us they’ll meet us back at the house in a little bit, that they’re going to help Rafaela secure the house next door.

  “Did he call yet?” Ice asks one more time, referring to Diaab.

  I shake my head. I’ve been checking the phone about every ten minutes, even though I set the text alert and ringer volume to its highest settings.

  Adeline gets in the car while I pop the trunk and check on Diaab’s boys. They’re both exhausted from kicking the trunk for help.

  “You enjoy using those little feet of yours while they’re untouched,” I tell them. “Because your dad hasn’t called yet, and if he doesn’t call by tonight, chances are good both of you will lose all the toes on your right foot. Or maybe your left. I haven’t decided yet.”

  When I see the terror in their eyes, I shut the lid.

  I’m not worried so much about Kamal, but little Nasr’s attitude is not conducive to being a good prisoner. If I can just break that, then I’ll treat them
right, keep them comfortable and safe, and when the time comes, return them to Diaab unharmed in an exchange for my kids.

  That’s the hope, anyway.

  In the car, I ask Adeline if she’s got her gun. She takes it out of her jacket pocket and says, “It’s loaded and the safety’s on.”

  “Spare rounds?” I ask.

  From her other jacket pocket, she produces a clear plastic baggie with ten rounds in it.

  “Good girl,” I say.

  She’s got a small .22 I took off some low-level roach in a crack bust a long time ago. It’s been stashed in my gun safe ever since. The serial number’s filed off and I bought a spare box of ammo, just in case. Today is that “just-in-case” day.

  Before you start to wonder, the truth is I never wanted to pop someone off the books. That didn’t mean things wouldn’t change one day. They might. It’s all because of this real turd burglar who killed three kids. This was in 2015 and he got off with time served. The cops didn’t read him his Miranda rights properly. The case was thrown out due to procedural error. A month later he shot a pregnant mother in the parking lot of a shoe store.

  After that, I fleeced the .22, skated the books and kept it for that reason alone. Me and a few of the guys talked about revenge. About exacting proper justice the old fashioned way. We never got the chance. Someone beat us to it.

  I wasn’t new back then, so I knew the score, but I wasn’t old enough to be jaded and turn into some psycho with a penchant for vigilante justice. Sure, it was necessary to vent like that. But we wouldn’t have gone through it, I think. I don’t know, maybe we would have. Either way, I’m glad I took that gun now. Perhaps it will save a life rather than take one.

  “You still feel okay with it?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  After a few blocks of nothing but debris and a few thin patches of smoke, I say, “When Ice and I were headed over, we got stalked by these small drones. Spotters I think. If you see them, show them your gun, but don’t shoot them unless I tell you to.”

  “What did they want?” she asks.

  “Hard to say.”

  When we get home, she heads upstairs and says, “I need a shower.”

  “Can I watch?” I ask.

  She looks at me, grins and says, “If you want.”

  “I want.”

  Before she can start the shower, I help her undress but block her way. Her eyes are soft and wanting. I know that look. My eyes are no different. I feel primeval, my desires carnal. She looks me over, then lets her hands find me. Her fingers trail up my arm, find my jaw, turn it to kiss her.

  I break away, looking at her. For nearly eight months, I didn’t see her. I didn’t even have a picture of her because I was so scared that what happened to Ice’s family would happen to mine. It didn’t help that I saw pictures of Holly and the girls after they’d been shot. That alone nearly destroyed me.

  Because Ice lost his entire family, I refused to place any unnecessary risk on mine. That meant disappearing. I thought it was only for a month or two, but eight months? I never thought it would go to that.

  Looking back, feeling the ungodly pressure to never let my guard down, I’m not sure how I handled that. But now that I’m moving out of that fog, I’m seeing just how much I missed this—my beautiful wife.

  “You look at me like you love me,” she says.

  “I wasn’t just in love with you when we first got together, I was obsessed with you. It was like a drug. I wanted you so badly back then. I needed you every second of the day and now I feel those feelings coming back.”

  “I didn’t know if you had anything left for me in there,” she says, tapping my head.

  “I didn’t think I had anything left for anyone, but now, looking at you, I am intoxicated, so overwhelmed by your beauty, so in love with you I feel like my heart is going to explode.”

  I feel my eyes watering as I’m telling her this. This emotional roller coaster is taking me to places I never thought I’d find again. It’s pulling at me, filling me, emptying me. For so long I’ve felt like a beach ball sent out to sea, never again meant to see land, let alone serve a purpose other than drift with the currents. Now I’m starting to wonder if being home is changing all that. To say I’m relieved that I can still feel—let alone love—is me understating the obvious.

  I tuck her hair behind her ear, lean in and pause just enough for her to come the rest of the way. Before she kisses me, she says, “Do you think you can do this with me knowing our kids are still out there?”

  “No, but I want to try,” I say.

  We were always good like this. Making love brought us closer together, strengthened the bonds between us. We haven’t been together in eight months, so really, we need this.

  I need this.

  She shuts off the shower, then takes my hand and walks me to the bed. I’m happy to follow her, happy to see her like this, unburdened by clothes, her body primed to take me, to make me hers.

  There’s something different about her though. She feels girlish and young again, no longer consumed with hostility for me. It’s a temporary phenomenon I know, but who am I to question my good fortune? It’s likely to be a rare occurrence. I won’t forget about our kids—I can’t even if I tried—but I realize she needs this to strengthen her, us, too and I’m glad.

  We take our time, savor every moment leading to this. I kiss her all over, let my hands drift over the landscape of her body, amazed, drunk on this moment, on her.

  “This body,” she says, her hands on me, too, her eyes starting to look every bit as primal as mine are feeling.

  I refuse to give in to my more baseline instincts. As much as I need to ravage her, to take her and make her mine right now, we let the anticipation build. In that, there are so many joys. Never before have I been so acutely aware of her. The way her skin looks and smells, the softness of her neck, the sensuality she’s exuding…it’s all making this moment so much better.

  I can hardly stand it.

  They say you never know what you have until it’s gone. She was almost gone. Now she’s here with me, not pushing me away, running her fingers through my hair, pulling me close to her, wanting me to take her.

  I want that.

  She’s all I’ve ever wanted and now we’re back together again.

  She climbs on top of me, her eyes now lustrous with primordial want, her intentions clear. My skin breaks out in goosebumps, the moment here.

  Oh God, how I’ve dreamt of this moment! It’s literally kept me from going insane all these months. Now it’s the only thing nourishing me in these impossible, untenable times.

  When I nearly killed Caelin, I stopped short because I knew doing that would cost me any chance I might have with being back with her. Now that he’s out of the picture, if I want, I can find him, choke the very life out of him. I can even put a bullet in between his eyes and not give it a second thought. This puts a smile on my face, drives me further into her, makes me feel like she’s mine and mine only.

  When we’re together, she says, “I own you now,” like she’s in my head, reading my most private thoughts.

  “Any man that ever touches you again gets killed,” I mumble into her bosom. This takes her breath. I look up, see her smiling, her eyes closed.

  “Fire?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Don’t ever leave me again,” she says.

  She stops to tell me this, to get that reassurance. Seeing her like this lets me know I’m still loved, still wanted. In truth, my heart is soaring right now. If I didn’t feel at home in my own house three days ago, I do now. This is my wife, my family, my home.

  “I won’t,” I tell her. “From now on, it’s only us.”

  “Good, now make me your wife again. And make it count, because when we’re done here, it’s go time.”

  “Did you just say ‘it’s go time?’” I ask with a laugh.

  Looking down, smiling, her body in motion again, she says, “I did.”

  An
d with that, we find our way back to each other, to the things that once mattered. We are two people who chose each other, who love each other—we’re two hearts inextricably entangled, two hearts made stronger together.

  I won’t bother you, or thrill you, with the delights of our coupling, but I will say whatever madness had infected our relationship, especially our ability to deal with each other, has now fallen away. This moment is our reset. It’s rock solid. And maybe I feel a bit less like a psycho.

  Just don’t tell my enemies that…

  When we’re up and dressed and waiting for Ice, Eliana and Carolina to return, a knock on the front door startles me. That’s when I see Adeline head for the door with the burner pistol at her side. She answers the door, then says, “Oh, hi Draven. Please, come in.”

  Crap, I forgot to check on him and Eudora! Seeing him now, seeing the nasty contusion he has just above his temple has me concerned for his grandmother.

  “That looks brutal,” I hear myself say.

  Adeline reaches for it, touches it lightly, causing the kid to wince. He stows any pretense of pain, though. Guys don’t show pain in front of pretty girls unless it’s going to melt their hearts.

  But Adeline’s with me, that much is now clear.

  “How is your grandmother?” I ask.

  “Pissed off.”

  “I bet,” Adeline says.

  “I’m here on her behalf,” he tells us. “Eudora wants to talk about the next steps. She says it’s time.”

  “Time for what exactly?” I ask.

  “She says it’s time to fortify the neighborhood.”

  “I agree,” I say. “Maybe you and your grandmother can come over and we’ll make dinner this time.”

  He nods, then says, “What time?”

  “Six?”

  “Sure, yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

  “Hey man, are you alright?” I ask, truly concerned for the kid.

  “The guy, the big black dude that did this,” he says, pointing to his head, “why do you think he didn’t kill me?”

  Adeline draws a deep breath and says, “Because he wasn’t here for you. He was here for us, for my kids.”