I rushed down the interstate, unclear of where the National Guard had set up their containment area. I imagined it being right off the onramp close to the gas stations and the empowering lights, yet I had already traveled several miles with no signs of life in front or behind me. The world appeared to have been evacuated to some unknown planet elsewhere, leaving me, Kember and the two Thugs behind. That was not a comforting feeling by any means.
“Where the hell is this damn place?” I asked aloud. “Did I go the wrong way or was it all bullshit to begin with?” That last question stuck in my mind more than anything. If this wasn’t an isolated case, like I was beginning to think, there was a good chance they could have been over run, or maybe they just packed up and moved when things got out of hand...
My so called luck was dripping away like a spilled cup of milk.
The yellow line quietly slipped beneath the SUV as we drove down the interstate in search of some allusive containment center that I was sure would never be found, nor had it ever been there probably. The Officer had just told me that to simply save my life and nothing more. So if that had been the case, which I was positive of now, where would we go? If the problem wasn’t local, then going to a large city would be a disastrous idea.
I let off the accelerator and the SUV began to slow from seventy down to sixty, then on toward fifty miles an hour. My mind was racing faster than we were traveling and I had to catch up to it. In the middle of nowhere on a desolate interstate I suddenly came upon a group of cars stalled in the middle of the road. Fear registered upon my face as death stared blankly back at me. I slammed on the brakes and swerved, yet none of that worked, I braced for impact. The fear of sustaining a serious injury in the crash coursed through my mind like electricity and grew as I thought about Kember being injured, as well.
A metal pole smashed through the windshield, missing my head by mere inches. The crash was sudden, instant, and, absolute… then silence.
Chapter Three.
I awoke to hear a muffled noise behind me. My vision was blurry and my head felt like a metal pole had gone all the way through it, instead of missing me and I had lived. I strained my neck forward, feeling the bones crunch as I moved. My neck is broken I thought. I’m going to be paralyzed from the neck down and I’ll sit here for days until I die. More than that, I will get to watch, as well as hear, my daughter dying also. I wanted to move my hand but was scared to try, knowing that if it didn’t move we were screwed. It was the fear that kept me from moving it. The fear of the unknown and my rampant thoughts, along with the anticipation of it all were too much.
Without warning, I shifted my attention to the backseat to see Kember awake and looking at me with an odd expression painted on her face. She had been crying as I could see the tears on her cheeks as well as the redness around her eyes. But for how long? “It’s okay, baby. We’re still alive and kicking… I think.”
Kember, didn’t see it that way as she had been strapped into her car seat and awoke to find her daddy slumped over in the front seat and after several attempts at trying to get his attention with no success, her childhood fear pushed her to do what any child of her age would do in such a situation. She started crying.
I crawled into the backseat with her and quickly took one of the small bottles of juice and poured it into a sippy cup and handed it to her. Kember quickly took it and began drinking as though she hadn’t had anything in weeks. With that taken care of and her crying ceased, I unwittingly realized that I wasn’t paralyzed from the neck down, I wasn’t even injured at all and that made me happy for the moment. I changed tactics quickly and scanned the darkness around the SUV, saw nothing and no one and got out, shutting the door behind me quietly. I wasn’t sure how far we had driven before the crash, which meant if it wasn’t that far, those two assholes could catch up with us if that thing hadn’t finished them off. So every move I made was calculated and quiet.
At the front of the SUV I could see that the damage wasn’t that bad, although the windshield would have to be replaced as soon as possible. I could use it if I got the vehicle running again, but it wouldn’t stop the rain or wind from getting in at us. A simple fix of shoving some papers or perhaps a small shirt into the hole would work temporarily. Luckily for me there were a shitload of other cars and trucks that I could barrow parts from to get back on the road, the only question was how long the repairs would take and was I capable of doing the work? I was no mechanic; in fact I had no real knack for mechanics or engineering at all. It all might as well have been Greek to me.
Under the falling rain, I could see cars and trucks of all makes and models stretched out before me in some never ending auto grave. There must have been miles of abandoned vehicles, but why? None of them appeared to be disabled in anyway, so why would the owner just get out and leave. I spun around a few times thinking that maybe more of those things had attacked the drivers as they stopped to help another motorist and with stacks of other vehicles in front of them they had nowhere to go. If that was the case, I wanted to be certain that it would not happen to us as well.
“Poor bastards… they never had a chance.”
The rain could have washed any signs of blood away. That didn’t explain why there were no bodies anywhere to be found though. No signs of attack on any of the windows on the cars and trucks. It was as if they all got out willingly and were carried away.
“Might as well stop procrastinating and get this over with.” I said and moved to the rear of the SUV, popped the gate and pulled a jacket with a hood on. The rain was still falling and had slacked up, regardless of that though the temperature was dropping. Kember looked over the seat at me and I smiled. “Drink your juice, baby. Daddy has some work to do and hopefully we’ll be out of here in a little while.”
With the thoughts still fresh in my mind, I doubted that we would be going anywhere for some time and with her not really able to understand, I said what I said to make both of us happy… more so for me.
“I love you.”
She giggled and went back to drinking her juice. I shut the gate and moved toward the multitude of cars and trucks. Unlike the last time I had stopped and gotten out, I brought the Beretta with me this time and shoved it down the front of my pants. That way if I were to run into more assholes, like back at the gas station, they wouldn’t get anything over on me and I’d frighten them away. In theory anyway. I lit a cigarette and cupped it from the light rain as I walked.
“Guess I should have checked and created a list of things I’ll need to get the Pathfinder up and running before coming out here and walking around like some idiot,” I said softly, walking past a few cars, stopping to look through the windows before moving on to the next. It wasn’t important to procure any type of supplies at the moment, as I had several bags of snacks and smokes at the gas station, which I figured would last for some time. The search was more for anything we could use to stay warm and remain undetected in the SUV until it was repaired or help arrived. In all honesty and fairness, the later was something I wasn’t so sure about anymore.
With each new car or truck that I stopped to look in, I always glanced back at the SUV keeping it in sight. The doors were locked and the keys stuffed in my pocket. Kember would more than likely finish her sippy cup and fall back to sleep with it being dark, so the only thing I really had to worry about was if she remained warm or not. With the engine off, the heater was off too. It wouldn’t take long for the interior to get cold and with her little body; she’d be far more likely to get cold before I did. Even with a small blanket I’d found in the back, which I had placed over her before leaving, she was hot natured and had a tendency to kick the covers and blankets off throughout the night. All I could do was hope my actions were right and true.
From the wood line to his right someone watched him move from car to truck, look in the window, and then move on to the next one. They moved silently through the darkened woods, careful with each step placement as not to break any twigs and give their position away as they moved parallel to him.
Under an open gate of a small SUV they watched him pull and light a cigarette, scanning the darkness in a vigilant attempt to keep his surroundings in check. He cupped the ember end of the smoke as he took a drag, and then lowered it to his side, keeping it from being seen by anyone who might wander up near him. He took a further look into the rear of the vehicle he was using as cover and found nothing he could use. Several drags later he dropped the smoke and seemed to be chewing over the idea of going further or returning to his own SUV.
The unseen person brought a high powered scope up to see the target better and watched as the Young Man made his choice and headed back toward his SUV. They could see his lips moving, yet with the distance between the two of them, they could not hear what he was saying.
When he reached the SUV the unseen person switched the safety off and slid their finger onto the trigger. If his SUV was drivable they would no longer have to move on foot. It was considered to be a necessary evil to kill in order to stay alive, but the unseen person had done it a few times already and this time would be no different.
He slipped into the SUV and grabbed his cell phone from the cup holder and turned it on, looked at it for a few seconds giving the unseen person a perfect shot, so even if the first shot did not kill, they would have nowhere to go. They had unwittingly made themselves a sitting duck.
He spun around and shined the light toward the rear. The face of a young child came into view and the unseen person froze. This Young Man was not the usual trash and scum of the earth that had been encountered so far and they pulled their finger off the trigger and returned the rifle to safe. Their clothing was dark in color and blended well with the forest surroundings. They moved closer to the interstate and spotted a nice sized tree, to which they pulled something from a backpack and looked up into its dark confines.
I awoke sometime around eleven in the morning to the feeling of the SUV moving. My eyes shifted toward the driver seat and saw no one, and then over to where Kember was playing with a few of her toys that stayed in the SUV for when they went on trips or simply to the grocery store. Suddenly though, the familiar screams alerted me to danger and I up to find the vehicle surrounded by those things. They knew I was within and they were rocking it back and forth in a violent display.
The sound of glass breaking followed the sight and I saw one of them coming through the passenger window. Kember was directly in its path and I thrust the .9mm forward and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Glass behind me broke and I spun to see two of them coming through the rear gate at me. Again I pulled the trigger and again nothing happened. On closer inspection I found that the magazine was vacant from the pistol.
“What the hell…”
Kember’s giggles called to me and I saw the mag in her hand. The window next to her exploded and one of those things reached in and took the bullets from her, showed it to me with a grin and spoke. “Time to die… just like Mary did.”
I was grabbed from behind and felt the teeth sink into my flesh. The pain was excruciating and I screamed out in pain while Kember giggled and watched me die. The thing next to her only smiled at me as it stroked her long hair, and then lifted her out into the open.
“NO!” I screamed, reaching for it.
I lurched from sleep to find that the sun was just beginning to come up, that Kember was still fast asleep beside me and the .9mm was loaded and had a bullet in the chamber. “I have to do something about these windows or they’ll see us for sure,” I said and made my way to the front and began looking through the various places like the glove box and small areas in each of the driver and passenger side doors.
It was in the center console that I found a bottle of hydrocodone, which I slid the lid off and popped one into my mouth, and a small note I’d written to my wife a few months back. I opened the letter, knowing better than to read it as it would only dig up the memories I was trying so hard to suppress at the moment. Within seconds her face entered my mind and I felt the tears running wildly.
The coward within returned to the surface and I could do nothing to quell its awful presence. I could see her lying there motionless in the kitchen, but could not for the life of me find the courage to go and investigate. She could have been alive during all of that time and that was the thought that killed me the most. If that had been the case, then I could have helped her. I could have gotten her into the SUV with us, where she’d be right now. But I hadn’t. Instead, I tucked my tail between my legs and ran like a scared little girl. I sunk into the seat and cried my eyes out as Kember watched from the back seat.
An hour later, I made my way to one of the cars I had passed the night before with my Daughter in my left arm and the Beretta in my right. The thought of leaving her behind after the nightmare I’d endured was no longer an option. If something was going to happen, I’d rather be there with her than hear it from a distance and have to return like a madman and hope that I was in time.
The warm sun shown down upon us with warm rays of light. The world around us was amazing in every way possible to Kember. She would point to different things and get utterly excited for no reason at all, making little noises to go along with what she saw. I couldn’t help but smile at her actions and felt my love for her growing more than I ever knew was possible. I tried to think back to my own childhood and wondered if I had ever been like she was now? I wondered if my mom had ever been faced with a difficult situation and found comfort and slight relief when she looked at me to find me smiling at the beauty that lay all around us.