The Age of Embers (Book 4): The Age of Exodus Read online

  Diaab Buhari was in the business of kidnapping children he trafficked into Sudan to be sold on the black market for any number of sick perversions. It still haunts me that he snatched my kids, and even though I got them back, if I hadn’t…truthfully, I can’t even say the kind of monster I’d be right now.

  Putting the thought out of my head, I grab a roll of duct tape and head out front. Who would have thought I’d be using Diaab’s child kidnapping starter kit to survive the apocalypse. That in itself is difficult to wrap my mind around. And it certainly makes the case that, in some situations, a healthy detachment from reality might very well be a necessity of survival.

  When I get back to the Barracuda, Ice is tightening all the screws, mindful of the fit so as not to strip the screws.

  He sees what I’m holding and says, “That’s exactly what we need!”

  We create a duct tape seal both on the outside of the windshield and then again on the inside as best as we can. It’s not pretty, but it will do.

  “We should grab another five rolls for the road,” Ice says.

  Again, he’s not wrong.

  Standing back, looking at the Detroit menace, this once halfway good-looking car is now a Frankenbeast. A purple people mover with a crap attitude and a Road Warrior look.

  “Same thing with the side window?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I tell him, checking my pockets. “Do you have the brackets?”

  He produces a handful of brackets we’ll use to affix a full window to the outside of the car, along with a mounting rail that looks like it will bear the bulk of the weight. An hour later, after some cursing, a lot of sweating and what us Neanderthals like to call creative genius, we’ve got an exterior window that won’t roll down. At least it’s mounted, screwed in and duct taped to the outside of the Frankenbeast.

  “The rims are shiny,” I say, almost like shiny rims will fix anything.

  “Yeah,” Ice says, “not so much.”

  Inside, Adeline’s at the kitchen table with Nyanath. The African woman has her hands in her head and she’s sobbing. That’s my cue to go the other way. Adeline told me earlier Nyanath lost her husband and child. I already knew this. Perhaps us losing Eudora triggered that thing she was trying to bury inside her.

  Either way, she’s in the middle of a crying jag and that I understand. As I’m walking away, I can’t help thinking this could be me one day, or my family if something happens to me. The stark reality of this situation hits me pretty hard. Makes me question the necessity of this trip.

  I will be the first to admit, it’s stupid to leave here and go to California. But it’s not smart to stay, either. We need to go somewhere, but two thousand miles away? Not necessarily. The best thing we can do is find warmer weather, property and a house we can turn into a homestead. But I can’t just forget about Rock.

  He’s my brother.

  He’s family.

  This is the place I come to every time, the inevitability of this journey. Even Ice agrees. We need to get to Rock.

  The logistics of such a feat create myriad problems. We have no idea what lies ahead, what challenges we’ll face. Lawlessness for sure. Lack of water and supplies, namely food and weapons, sits in the forefront of my mind. But what about the dangers we can’t see? The ones we can’t plan for? There are bound to be more than a few.

  Turning back around, I find Eliana and Ice, then say, “We need to pow-wow.”

  “Is Orlando back yet?” Eliana asks me in Spanish.

  Crap.

  “He’s not,” I respond. “He and Draven have been gone all afternoon.”

  “If he’s with Draven, he’ll be fine,” Eliana says with a noticeable edge to her voice. I look at her. Ice is looking at her, too. “What?”

  “What’s with you and that kid?” I ask Eliana.

  “Me and Ice?”

  “No not you and Ice,” I say. “You and Draven.”

  “First off, he’s like thirty or something, so he’s not a kid. And second, he’s like me,” Eliana says, looking away, but taking Ice’s hand. “Just less likeable, and maybe not as pretty.”

  A snort escapes me. I’ve seen what Draven can do. That’s why I know she’s right about him.

  “He just hides his hostility better than Eliana,” Ice says.

  “I’m not hostile,” she retorts.

  “And Isadoro and I aren’t brothers,” I quip.

  “His grief will take away the nice guy persona,” she says. “He will become more like me and less like the mask he wore before.”

  “Are you saying he wasn’t genuine?” I ask. “That the nice side of him was a façade?”

  “I’m saying he will not be restrained now. That’s how I know Orlando will be okay with him. The real Draven has been unleashed.”

  Nodding my head in contemplative thought, I have to agree with her. Although it makes me wonder if a guy like that will need an outlet. When I needed an outlet, a body count followed. I almost executed a trio of kids. Granted they died anyway, but whatever—a lot of people were dying.

  “We should still meet for a sit down,” I say, pressing the issue. “We have to talk about this trip we’re taking. You realize there’s like…what?—twenty of us?”

  We already did a head count, made sure there were enough cars for the trip, but just hearing out loud that twenty of us will be trekking across the country in the middle of a societal breakdown reinforces the absolute freaking absurdity of this decision.

  “Xavier’s out searching for weapons and ammo,” Ice says. “He should be back shortly. Are you wanting to include Morgan in this discussion?”

  Morgan, I think to myself. The abandoned wife, the mother of dead children. The woman looks like any minute she’s either going to offer to bake us a cake or go out back and eat a bullet. She’s walking a razor’s edge with thousand foot drop-offs on either side of her.

  “Yeah,” I finally answer. “We need to assess her mental fitness.”

  “What do you mean?” Eliana asks.

  Eliana is looking more and more like a guy than her cleaned-up self. It’s almost disturbing how badly she wants to blend in with the others, and how much her mannerisms—even her walk—is becoming more masculine.

  If ever there was a gray man, it was her. She’s even wrapping an Ace bandage around her breasts to flatten them out. Privately, to me, Ice calls this a tragedy. I call it determination. Either way, it’s pretty amazing how she can hide her beauty and her femininity and become something else entirely.

  “When Xavier gets back, let’s meet in the kitchen,” I tell them. “Have a round table discussion.”

  “What about Draven?” Eliana asks.

  “What about him?”

  “You don’t want to include him in this?” she asks.

  “We need to make sure we’ve thought of everything before we leave. Think of this as the start of a longer discussion. One that will end only when we safely arrive on my brother’s property. So yes, at some point in time, we’ll have to include him in this convo.”

  Xavier returned half an hour later with bad news. He couldn’t find any guns. He had an assortment of potential weapons in a stack out back, but nothing that could fire a bullet.

  “We need to inventory our existing supply of weaponry,” I say, “then put what we have left in the hands of the most capable shooters.”

  “We’re all capable shooters,” Ice says, looking at Eliana and Xavier. “Draven, too.”

  “Yes,” Xavier argues, “but some of you are as good behind the wheel as you are behind the gun.”

  He has a point.

  “Are we all done with the waterworks yet?” Eliana says with little compassion. She’s referring to Nyanath breaking down in front of the kids and everyone.

  “She lost her children, her husband and her father,” I say, still amazed at how callous this woman can sometimes be.

  “She’ll probably lose more than that on the way to California,” she replies.

  “Not if
we plan this right,” Xavier says with furrowed brows, clearly sensitive to her cold, flippant remarks.

  “Well we’re wasting time thinking about her feelings when we need the table, a pencil and a piece of paper,” Eliana says. “I have our supplies list up here”—she says, tapping her forehead—“but we have very little of what we need, so we need a new list. A list of things we can pick up on the way.”

  “Space is the problem,” I tell them.

  “No kidding space is the problem,” she says. “That’s why we need a rack on the top of the bus and a rack on top of Nyanath’s car. Maybe even on your hunk of crap. But since that’s not possible, we’ll have to pack as much as we can on the back of the trailer and in the bus.”

  Sitting around the table, talking about our needs, Adeline laments the loss of everything we’d gathered that had burned up in the fire. I personally think it’s no use complaining, but there’s a certain amount of that I expect from my wife.

  She’s always been against taking this trip.

  I don’t say anything to Adeline, because honestly, she could win the argument and turn the tide of acceptance. Any couple is at their best when they’re in agreement. We’re not, but she has come to accept that this trip is happening, so I try not to be smug about it.

  Morgan makes her way to the table. She isn’t saying much, but based on what Draven said, she’s looking to get as far away from her home as possible. As if leaving Chicago will somehow help erase the memories of her dead children and her miserable life.

  “Chicago is a no-gun zone,” Xavier says. “Which means what’s the point of ammo if you’re not going to have a gun?”

  “We have enough ammo to get us out of Illinois,” Eliana says. “Don’t we?”

  “We barely have any ammo at all,” Morgan says, speaking up. “When we were out looking for supplies, just before we found the car, we saw a mob of people. Not as big as the mob that attacked our neighborhood, but close.”

  “What are you saying?” Ice asks.

  “I’m saying what makes any of us certain we can even get out of the city, let alone the state?”

  “Because we have to,” I say. “If we start this journey thinking we might be defeated, we might as well stay home and ride this thing out here.”

  “That’s what I vote for,” Adeline says.

  I look at her, unable to soften the expression that finds its way to my face. She looks at me with eyes that don’t seem to care about what I want or what my face is saying.

  “He shot Ice and left him for dead,” Adeline says out loud, referring to Rock.

  “I did shoot our father,” Ice says.

  “You had an excuse,” Eliana says, knowing the story and speaking directly at him. “You lost your family. He was responsible for that to some degree.”

  I put my hands up and say, “This is not a discussion about whether or not we’re going. We’re going. What we need to be doing is talking about how we’ll all get there in one piece.”

  “We need gas, water, food, weapons,” Xavier says, tired and a little annoyed—just like the rest of us. “It’s not that hard.”

  “We need firewood, an axe—”

  “Got one in the weapons stash,” Brooklyn says, chiming in. “Can I be a part of this conversation?”

  “Who’s watching the kids?” Morgan asks.

  “They’re with Carolina and they know not to leave the back yard,” Brooklyn replies.

  “Why don’t you take notes, honey?” Adeline asks Brooklyn.

  Brooklyn smiles, happy to be part of the group, then sits down with the pencil and paper ready to write.

  “We’ll need lighters for fire, a shovel for digging a fire pit and putting out the fire, a camp stove or at least a grilling grate, sleeping bags, sunscreen, bug spray,” I say. “Did you get all that?”

  Brooklyn nods, her pencil scribbling everything down.

  “Shampoo, soap, a few towels,” Adeline continues.

  “Toilet paper,” Ice says. “We’re going to need lots of toilet paper.”

  “If we all get a bandana,” Eliana says, “we don’t need toilet paper. Just some water to wash it with daily.”

  “So when you mud it up,” I ask, “are you just going to shove it back in your pocket?”

  “Isn’t that the Alabama hot pocket?” Ice asks.

  “Not even close,” Adeline replies, frowning and making eyes at my brother. He and I start to snicker, which is totally inappropriate.

  “What’s an Alabama hot pocket?” Nyanath asks.

  Ice and I are still laughing it up. Adeline throws a wadded up napkin at Ice, which he willfully takes on the bridge of his nose.

  “You’re disgusting, Isadoro,” Adeline says, using his full name to put a stamp on her displeasure.

  Nyanath is still looking to my wife for an answer. Adeline waves off the question and says, “Trust me when I tell you, you don’t want to know. What about pillows? Visine? Pans to cook in and plates to eat off of? And something to wash the pans with? The last thing we need is bacterial infections.”

  Thinking of what Ice just said about the Alabama Hot Pocket, and then thinking of bacterial infections, the two of us idiots can’t stop the jumping in our chests. He’s first to burst into laughter, but somehow I get a napkin in the face.

  “You guys are gross,” Adeline says, smacking me on the arm and not lightly.

  “Sorry, babe,” I say before offering a lame excuse. “It’s the job.”

  “It’s your stupid ass immaturity,” she barks.

  I hold up my hands, realize she’s scared, or mad, that she’s being forced to do something she doesn’t want to do and it would be too easy to send her over the edge.

  It’s time to tread lightly…

  “We need silverware,” Ice says, barely composed.

  “We can take mine,” Nyanath offers, getting up from the table. “I’ll start boxing it now.”

  We go on like this for awhile, and when we look at the list Brooklyn created, I swear to God, you can feel every single one of us at the table deflate.

  “We have three cars, a bus, a trailer and twenty people,” I say. The reality, matched with Brooklyn’s list, is like a swift kick in the family eggs.

  “We’ll have to start cutting things from this list,” Eliana reasons. “Who has the map?”

  “I’ll grab it,” Xavier says.

  We spread out a large map of the United States, all of us standing up and leaning over it as Xavier traces his finger over to Hwy 55, down through the villages and suburbs of Bolingbrook, Romeoville and Shorewood.

  “If we can get to I80 taking this route, we can take it all the way to California.”

  “If it’s even clear,” Brooklyn says.

  “It won’t be,” I tell her. “But at least we can use it as a guide.”

  “We’re going to need to stay on it so we can hit Davenport, Iowa City, Des Moines,” I say. “We figure out what we can get in these cities and instead of packing everything here, we gather what we need along the way.”

  “That’s not exactly safe,” Morgan says, her voice small, her eyes uncertain, her hands wringing together and red.

  “Everyone here has a choice to go or not,” Eliana announces.

  Waving the statement off, I say, “Of course, we know that. And everyone else knows this, too. The point is, in order to get supplies, no matter where we go, we’re going to be neck deep in it. That’s why we need to go somewhere where we can find guns.”

  “Or find some people who have them and take theirs,” Xavier says, lackluster and apathetic.

  “What are Iowa’s gun laws?” Morgan asks.

  “They can have guns over there without even having to register them,” I answer. “In other words, there are no restrictions on them, unless you’re carrying. For that, you need to have a permit on your person, but you don’t need to disclose it to law enforcement.”

  “Meaning everyone is probably armed,” Xavier says.

  “And pos
sibly dangerous,” Morgan adds.

  “It also means if we play our cards right,” Ice says, “we can load up on guns and ammo in Iowa, and maybe get a few things to tide us over. We just might need to rough a few folks up.”

  “Des Moines crime rates are off the charts for the state,” I tell them. And when I see people wanting to ask how I know this, I say, “Lots of guns were trafficked into Chicago by way of Iowa. We were briefed on the stats regularly.”

  “If we can get through Iowa,” Xavier says, now sounding a bit grim, “we have to get through Nebraska, too.”

  “So?” Morgan says.

  “Parts of Nebraska fall right into the heart of tornado alley,” Xavier says. Looking at Eliana, he says, “Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. This is the tornado season and 2019 is forecasted to be the worst in years.”

  “They say that every year,” Adeline says. “It’s what gets the weather channel ratings.”

  “That’s not true,” Xavier counters. “I’m sorry to correct you, Adeline, but in late May and early June, they had hundreds of reports of tornadoes, with some of those days being the worst on record in years. I think I heard they had something like a swarm of fifty of these tornadoes earlier this year.”

  “And you want to take us right through that?” Adeline asks. She’s aghast as she hits Xavier with the question, but then she turns and looks right at me. “We have two kids to think about, Fire. Two of our kids to one of your brothers.”

  “We’ll be fine, Adeline. We’re just looking at potential hazards and planning for the worst.”

  “Yeah, well it sounds bad, Dad,” Brooklyn adds.

  “If we can get from York through North Platte with no issues, we’ll be good,” Xavier says, his finger still on the map.

  “That’s a full day if things on the road are bad,” Morgan says. “Maybe a day and a half if they’re flat out awful.”

  “If we get on the 275 just outside Omaha, we can go around tornado alley, then hit the 25 in Wyoming and drop down into Cheyenne.”

  “Yeah, but we’ll lose a day, maybe two,” Ice says.

  “Let’s assess the situation in Omaha,” I say. “In the mean time, we need to look at that list again and, at a bare minimum, figure out food, water and sleeping arrangements.”