The Storm: War's End, #1 Page 5

  He slowly emerged from his hiding spot as the last of the light faded. The house in the distance looked old and he hoped they had a root cellar or a smokehouse. Those were typically separate from the property and often had food stored in them. This late in spring, there wouldn’t be much left, but he needed something besides the hard biscuits he had in his pack. Some part of him winced at the thought of stealing. That’s what it was. But what would he do after the biscuits were gone? He needed clean water too, and wondered if the rainfall had washed things clean enough to risk drinking from puddles. There had been no creeks in sight that morning.

  The wind had picked up and he could feel a few remaining damp spots on his pants. It wouldn’t matter, if the thunder and the black clouds on the horizon were any indication, he would be soaked again in a few hours anyway. He walked slowly through the thigh high grass until he reached the edge of a large cornfield. Only stubble remained from last year’s harvest. Soon it would be filled with green again. Planting would begin in earnest in less than two weeks.

  His thoughts flashed to his family’s garden in Belton. By late winter his mother would be busy setting down detailed instructions for the rest of the family on where to plant and what. He could see her sitting at the kitchen table, gardening books scattered around her for reference. She would have numbered all of the raised planters in the yard and marked them clearly. When Dad finished tilling up the dirt and removing the weeds Chris and Jess were always tasked with planting the seeds according to the diagrams she had painstakingly drawn during the last months. He smiled at the thought. She was forever muttering about companion planting and ‘crop rotation’ as she marked, scratched out and adjusted for new plants each year.

  Before he had found Allen he had still held out hope they were still alive. But Allen had said nothing when asked, just looked at the ground and shook his head. If Jess and Erin hadn’t made it out...Chris’s stomach roiled at the thought...then there would really be nothing left to return to.

  Lost in thought he had walked the entire length of the field and was now nearly at the house. He could see it in flashes of lightning. It was old, as he had hoped, probably late 1800’s. The windows on the first floor were boarded up and it looked as if one of the outbuildings had burned. The work of the Western Front soldiers, no doubt. He could see pale light from one of the upper windows. It flickered, so it had to be a candle or an oil lamp. Maybe even a fireplace, he remembered seeing smoke curling from a chimney this morning. Dangerous to do so, but the occupants were probably armed and the troops looked for better pickings in the cities or larger towns when possible, which is probably why whoever lived there had survived for this long without having their home burned with them still inside.

  He scouted around carefully, hoping the dog wouldn’t bark, and found the root cellar a few yards away from the back of the house. It was unlocked and he carefully eased the door up and slid in. It was dark as a tomb and he tripped on the uneven stone steps and nearly fell, rapping his shin sharply. It was dry, well kept and only a little musty, despite having dirt walls. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a lighter and shook it. It was low but he needed some light. The tiny flame revealed a surprisingly large room and several shelves were still stocked with food. He saw a variety of home canned goods and grabbed for the first green thing he could find. Green beans by the look of it. He also pocketed three apples, a jar of pickled eggs and two potatoes. His finger began to burn painfully and he dropped the lighter and lost the light for a few panicked moments.

  The rain had begun to drum down on the wooden cellar door as he rediscovered the lighter and took one more look around. On the lower shelf was a line of what looked like canned meat. He grabbed one and put it in his rucksack and headed for the door. It was enough to last him several meals and miles of walking. Survival was survival, but he didn’t like the thought of taking from others. He hoped that he could repay them some day.

  He held himself back from running as he headed back toward the road. It was stupid and dangerous to run on uneven ground. As it was, he twisted his ankles twice on the way back to the road and soaked one of his shoes completely through when he slipped into a puddle.

  As soon as his feet hit blacktop he turned right and headed south at a slow jog. He had miles to go before he would feel safe about heading back east and finally north towards Belton and the girls. Again he prayed for their escape. After a short break to eat, Chris followed the road, away from Belton, away from the camp, and into the storm.

  Shoes Worn Through

  “Without Erin, my God, I don’t know how I would have survived. No matter what happened, we knew we had each other, and it kept us going those first few months. Somehow, knowing someone else had been through it, knowing each other as we had all of our lives, it somehow gave us both the drive to wake up each morning and try. You can’t imagine how hard it was, some days I wanted to just lie there and not move, not eat, just hide from myself and the world and being alive. Everything I knew had been taken from me - except for Erie - oh God, Erie, how I miss you so. Even now, all these years later - I think I will miss you forever.” – Jess’s journal

  Jess woke to cold. Erin had managed to pull all of one blanket and most of the other completely off of her and as Jess awoke in the cold dawn, her stomach wrenched and heaved. She stumbled to the stream, which had slowed to a sedate pace and the meager contents of her stomach splashed out onto the rocks. “Jessie?” Erin’s sleepy voice broke through the stomach-twisting heaves, “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah...yeah...just...peachy,” she managed between heaves. Her stomach stopped its awful twisting and she stood back up, dizzy and still a little nauseous. “I’ve had this damn stomach flu for the last couple of weeks.” She groaned as her stomach twisted again and she didn’t notice Erin’s narrowed eyes and pinched gaze.

  “How long have you been sick, Jess?” Erin’s voice was clear of any sleepiness now, she sounded frightened.

  “About...oh!” Jess listed back towards the stream and heaved again, “Oh man, this sucks! Um...going on,” she bent and retched, “about three weeks now. Oh!!! Why?”

  “When was your last period?” Erin persisted.

  Jess looked at her oddly, “I dunno, a month, maybe two.”

  “When exactly?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “Well, do you think it’s possible that...”

  The fear clicked on inside of her. The pieces fell in place. Worse than the twisting of her stomach or how bad her feet ached. Just the thought of...

  “NO! Damn it! I told you I’ve got the stomach flu. Jesus, Erie, lay off the twenty-questions already!” Jess nearly shouted it, her whole being in chaos. She couldn’t be pregnant, not that way, oh god, oh god, oh god. The panic rose up inside her and she bent nearly in half and retched again. Nothing but bile now. Surreptitiously, her hand reached for her belly, seeking a telltale bulge. Nothing.

  Jess looked at Erin who was staring back at her, concern and fear evident in her green eyes. That they both knew the truth was obvious, but Jess wasn’t ready to accept it and Erin saw no point in pushing it.

  In the end, it would be evident soon, one way or the other. A long, awkward silence passed between them.

  Erin finally broke it by saying, “I’ll try and find some food, okay?” She glanced over at her friend—Jess was hunched over on a large rock staring at the burbling stream. “Even if you need to wait for a while to eat it, you know, let your stomach settle down, it’ll be good to have it on hand.” She reached out and squeezed Jess’s shoulder and walked away quietly, up the hill towards the west, looking for a good north-facing slope to find some fresh greens for them to eat.

  Yesterday had been unseasonably warm, which had allowed them to sleep comfortably with little cover or shelter, but today was on target for early spring, chilly morning and cool temperatures. The lingering cold of the night made every body part feel stiff and each bruise and cut was magnified. Her feet were throbbing in pa
in, and Jess noticed the multitude of sticks and burrs wrapped in the dried mud encasing the thick socks. They needed shoes, and blankets, food and somewhere they could safely hide until the camp was struck and the troops moved farther south into Arkansas. She pulled at the mud on her sock and watched pieces crumble away.

  She tried to remember when her last period had been and couldn’t. It wasn’t as if they had ever been regular. She couldn’t think of one since, well, since before they had been taken. Shit. Again her hand reached for her belly. Wait, it wasn’t flat, there was little bump, firm, not soft. Shit, shit, shit!

  And then Jess realized it didn’t matter. They would die out here, in the middle of the woods, and the awful thing would die inside her. And that was good. It was nothing more than a parasite, an invader, like the soldiers. She almost smiled in satisfaction at the thought of it dying with her. But she sat there, her ass sore from the ground, body aching, her bruised and swollen feet on fire, and her smile turned down. It was replaced with an almost feral snarl. She felt the anger build inside of her. She wasn’t ready to die. Not quite yet. Whatever tomorrow would bring; she was going to live, and to hell with them all.

  A quiet voice interrupted her thoughts, “Jess? You okay?” Erin had returned while Jess had sat there deep in thought. Jess could see that her friend had more of that friggin’ wood sorrel in her hands that had tasted so bitter, plus other green crap that looked just as unappetizing. Erin looked down at Jess with concern and fear.

  “Huh? Oh hey Erie. Yeah,” her body sagged a little and she relaxed, the snarl vanishing from her face. It was replaced by a satisfied smile, “Y’know, I better learn more about some of those survival skills you learned from your family. And we have got to find some shoes to wear, these socks won’t last long.”

  Before Erin could respond she continued, “And I’ve been thinking about those lakes we passed with the camp. You know the ones to the north? They’d have fish and we might be able to find a boat to help move us along and stay off the highway. If we get just a little more north, we could have a fire, maybe catch and cook somethin’. And you know, I’ve been thinking...”

  Erin laughed and hugged her. Come what may, they had each other and relief at their newfound freedom washed over both girls. Some of the plants slipped from Erin’s hands. Jess was okay, she was okay, and the rest would sort itself out in time. They would head north towards the lakes. It was a plan.

  They ate the greens Erin had picked, and tried to choke down some more of the tuberous roots, but they tasted and smelled like the muck they had been pulled from. Both girls spat out the roots rather than lose what little food they had in their stomachs. The air was warming considerably, and the sun was steadily rising in the sky. It was time to get moving.

  They had come from the east, and now they headed due north, following the creek as it steadily grew in width from the few feet in width where they had camped to over ten, even twenty feet wide in some places. They gathered plants as they walked, nibbling on them to keep their hunger at bay. There was plenty of wild onion. It grew everywhere and the girls figured it was a favorite of the deer, since they saw tracks wherever they saw onion and the tops of the green plant had obviously been nibbled.

  The way wasn’t easy, especially since their bruised feet felt every rock, and branch and bramble. There were no mile markers to tell them how far they traveled that day, but the amount of swearing seemed to increase steadily as the day wore on. Already the sun was beginning to sink in the sky, it wouldn’t be long until sunset, and Erin stopped for the umpteenth time to pull a particularly painful twig from her now bedraggled and hole-ridden sock.

  Jess was slightly ahead of her, stumbling along, exhausted and swearing, “Godawful trees and forest and freaking nature. What I would give for...” She stopped and stared ahead and across the creek to the east. “Oh my god...Oh my god...Erie! There’s a house over there!” Her voice fell to a sharp whisper, suddenly associating a house with people, and the fear that it could be occupied.

  It wasn’t really a house, more of a hunting cabin. The girls could see it clearly as they made their way over the creek and through the ice cold water which soaked their socks and numbed their legs all the way to their knees. Teeth chattering, they edged through the trees, looking around for signs of life. Their ears strained for any sound, but there was nothing but the wildlife.

  Down a steep incline, and onto the creaky front porch, it took the girls a moment to find the courage to get past the simple doorknob lock with a few well-placed shoves. The doorframe splintered and the girls peered into the sparsely furnished, one room cabin. There was a kitchenette on the west wall with a tiny window that looked out onto the creek, and a small curtained-off section in the northwest corner turned out to be a crude bathroom. On the south wall to their left was a twin bed built into the wall, cupboards above and below it and a small table & chair next to it. On the same wall as the door was a couch that had seen better days and a curtained window above it.

  Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust. After days of nothing but hard, cold dirt to sleep on, both Jess and Erin figured they had died and gone to heaven.

  Some scouting outside in the rapidly fading light upstream revealed a scattered group of cabins, mostly hidden from view in the trees. The silence was overwhelming; none of the other cabins appeared occupied. Erin noticed that the cabin could have running water once the connecting pipe was lowered into the creek. The sharp decline from the creek to the cabin brought a solid stream of water directly through to the sink. Of course there wasn’t any electricity, but there was a propane stove, an oil lamp with a full bottle of oil, a generous supply of propane, and a treasure trove of canned foods in the cabinets. They also found two fishing poles, a .22 Rimfire rifle, and four boxes of ammunition. Erin closed her eyes in silent thanks at that find.

  To their delight they also found a raincoat that was lined and warm, blankets, and even a pair of shoes. “Here Jess, you try these, they’re definitely too small for me,” Erin passed the shoes to her friend. The shoes were made of canvas and had several holes. “These shoes are damn near worn through,” Jess observed, but she tried them on anyway, “Hey, they fit!”

  Erin smiled at her, “Better than socks, even if they are full of holes! So does this mean I get dibs on the bed tonight?”

  Jess just nodded, poked her big left toe through a hole in the shoe and grinned. They shook out the blankets outside and used a worn-out dishtowel to dust most of the thick film of dust away. Judging by the expiration dates on the food and the thickness of the dust, whoever owned this cabin hadn’t been there in a long time.

  There was nothing to identify who had stayed in this place. The girls both wondered, was the owner still alive? Why had this cabin, as remote as it was, been abandoned?

  If this cabin could talk, it would have told the girls about a writer and critic by the name of M.G. Wood, who had owned the cabin and two hundred and fifty acres of land that lay to the north and west. Wood had bought the large property shortly after the first real estate crash of 2008 and had great plans for it. There was plenty of room for a main lodge and a succession of small, simple cabins – a quiet and peaceful writing retreat.

  The old man who had owned the property before Wood had built the series of cabins and rented them out during the warm months to hunt and fish. After his death of cancer in 2008, his distant relatives in Brooklyn, New York were all too happy to unload the property for a fraction of what it was worth. Any money, they decided, was better than no money and an ungodly number of trees and dirt. People actually lived in flyover country? Why?

  The real estate slump had been followed by the Great Recession. In late 2012 the real estate ‘bubble’ become a gargantuan sinkhole as the Alte and Option Arm loans shot up to higher rates. And as the new owner struggled with their own financial troubles, dreams of artist’s retreats faded and years passed as the cabin stood alone in the woods, a good fifteen miles from the nearest two-lane road.
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  That night Jess and Erin feasted on tuna and a large can of hominy. They ignored the expiration dates, most of the cans showed dates that were a year or more past, and the food tasted just fine to the girls, whose palates were no longer that discerning. After all, they had eaten next to nothing for the past three days. They drank flat, boiled water by lamplight. Erin had insisted on firing up the stove and boiling all the water before they drank it.

  “Giardia, it’ll give us the runs among other things,” she said by way of explanation, “so it’s a good idea to boil the water before we drink it.” After the tiny scraps of wild plants they had eaten over the past two days, and the army rations they had been eating for months before that, their dinner was almost too rich to eat. The light outside had completely faded as they licked the remains of the tuna juice from their fingers, sitting on the floor with the lamp turned down low between them.

  It wasn’t long before they turned it off completely, partly out of fear that someone would see the light, and partly out of the need to conserve their resources. And the night found them curled together on the narrow bed for both warmth and reassurance. The girls slept, barely stirring when the wind kicked up a notch and the rain moved in.

  A Flight Interrupted

  “Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.” – Kevin Arnold

  He was home. It was nippy inside, as if the stove’s warmth could not push back the chill of the spring morning. Chris could smell the bread baking but the house was empty, and no one responded when he called out. The only noise was a truck rumbling by outside and men’s voices talking quietly in the distance. Jess’s room looked as if she had just jumped out of bed. The bed was unmade and there was a pair of dirty socks beside it. A note on the floor in their mother’s handwriting read, “Jess honey, please go to town, take that load of apples and see what you can get of flour and sugar.” Reading it, he knew then he was in a dream. Jess had gone to the store that day, the last day any of them had been together as a family. The last day any of them had been free.