The Age of Embers (Book 4): The Age of Exodus Page 9

  Not that she’s game.

  She told me last night she heard him out back, sitting beside his grandmother’s grave crying.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “I sat down beside him, just so he didn’t have to be alone,” she tells me.

  Draven’s not the only one feeling the effects of this war, of Eudora’s passing, of the anticipation of the long journey ahead. The way Brooklyn is comforting Draven, that’s the way I’m doing my best to be there for Adeline. We’re burning daylight though, and the longer we wait inside what Ice has taken to calling the Kill Zone, the more I want to come out of my skin.

  At this point, the neighborhoods surrounding Chicago proper are starting to unravel into chaos. It’s the smoke in the air. That slight tinge. Sometimes, it’s a lot worse. Depending on the time of day and the breeze, more than once we’ve had to head inside because when the smoke blows through, it rolls through thick. Being inside, however, meant we had to leave the cars, the bus and the trailer unaccompanied. Still, we have guys and girls with guns watching our supply with instructions to frighten first, warn stiffly second, and then kill at will when all else fails.

  That’s our ROE. Our rules of engagement.

  No one wants the weight of so much death on their hands, myself included. Ice might be the only exception, and maybe Eliana. Now possibly even Draven. To each of them, I have to imagine murder means different things. To me, it has to mean survival if I have any intention on keeping my family safe.

  Ice is the same. He’s all about survival. But he was a former hitman for the mob, so to him laying waste to some apocalyptic dumpster donkey would be no different than me going undercover with a gang, Adeline raising money for the homeless or Brooklyn going to school to learn. Eliana, however, was a former enforcer’s daughter, taught to maim and kill, forced to defend herself against aggressive men with their deviant tendencies. And Draven? The guy seemed like a normal guy who possessed the skills to be a hardened warrior, if only he could get his head right. As for the rest of us, we still have to sleep at night. And some of us want to get into heaven—if there is such a place—or at least not come back in the next life as someone’s neglected goldfish.

  “The fires are getting worse,” Carolina tells Eliana in the kitchen.

  Eliana’s niece isn’t exactly withdrawn, but with a bit of a language barrier, she and the other kidnapped girls have been keeping to themselves. I’m always trying to make conversation with her, being fluent in Spanish, but I have the feeling she’s scared of men my age due to what she survived.

  I don’t blame her.

  “People are burning things inside their homes,” I say in response, “but maybe the chimneys are dirty and catching fire, or maybe people are barbecuing inside.”

  “It’s not barbecue smell,” she says.

  “I mean to say, some people barbecue inside and then end up burning their houses down. That kind of thing happens when people try to heat their homes like that.”

  “I think the war inside the city has already begun,” Eliana answers, as much to me as to her niece. “The war between people for survival.”

  “Perhaps,” I say, looking at Carolina, who at this point, seems to have found a way to conceal most of her emotions, or at least, her more volatile ones.

  For awhile, while the smoke is light and the air warm, the mass exodus from the city continues. Yesterday, three stragglers tried to steal some of our supplies off the trailer. Veronica held a gun on them and called out for one of us.

  The gun was empty, a total show piece.

  One of the men advanced on her. Ice pushed through the back door first, his presence alone stopping the man in his tracks. I opened a second story window, aimed the rifle at him. It didn’t matter that it was empty. When you’re some dude stealing from a bunch of other people and you see a rifle pointed at you, you never stop to ask if the gun is loaded.

  They got the point and left.

  Ever since the EMP put an end to the drones, people began migrating out of the cities. Now, many of them were wandering through the neighborhoods in ones and twos; other times they moved in groups, some as large as packs. At one point, a mob of about a hundred of them trundled through. From our windows, as we watched them, we stood in awe.

  “They look like the walking dead,” Brooklyn had said.

  None of these people seemed to be saying anything. Everyone just looked straight ahead, their eyes red from the smoke, their mouths fixed, as if determined to get wherever they were going even if they dropped dead along the way.

  Maybe they would drop dead. Maybe they were dead already and I was just stuck in their nightmare.

  Several of them branched off and tried breaking into the homes in the Kenwood neighborhood where we’re staying. Some guy with a shotgun he wasn’t afraid to use ran most of them off. Last night we heard gunshots, and then hammering, and then this morning we woke to find a man staked to a tree. He was clearly dead, his body a warning, a deterrent.

  I couldn’t help thinking that time would tell if it worked or not.

  To our horror, when no one was watching, Nasr coaxed Bianca to go with him to look at the body. Bianca was nine, Nasr seven. He might have been showing off. Then again, Nasr was a curious little troublemaker.

  Adeline told me she found Nasr trying to put his finger in one of the bullet holes. Bianca had been squealing. Now Nyanath had him on a tight leash.

  Eliana, however, didn’t seem to mind.

  “They are going to see worse if this world stays dead. Worse might even happen to them. It’s best they get the feelings burned out of them now.”

  Just before sunset, someone set a house on fire. It’s five homes down from us and we’ve got eyes on it as it burns. Some of us are praying the fire won’t spread; others merely stare at the flames as they eat through the house; and others—like me—are grinding through our molars hoping to God we don’t have to leave early.

  We’re close to ready, but not all the way ready.

  By some miracle, or perhaps divine intervention, the house burns to the ground, taking only the surrounding shrubs with it. After a few hours of dark, with nothing but the embers and a contained burn left, collectively we’re able to relax. At this point, all we have between us and leaving Chicago is a few more hours and a good night’s sleep.

  Instead of that extra few minutes of sleep, I wake Adeline and let her know this will be the last day for awhile that we’ll be able to be together.

  “Are you saying you want to have sex?” she asks, drowsy.

  “I’m saying it’s a good idea in case we want to later and don’t get the chance. It could be something we regret. So really, I’m talking about making good decisions now so we don’t have regret later.”

  “So that’s a yes?” she says, rolling over.

  “Emotionally, I’m already inside you,” I tell her.

  She isn’t on board at first, but I’m persistent, and I know she’s still got some small spark left for me. The way we get to it, quietly yet eventually unrestrained, it’s because we have our own room for the last time in awhile and we both know this could be the last time we do it.

  When we’re done, as we lay there with our chests rising and falling in that post-coital bliss, she says, “If I die, you have to promise me you’ll take care of the kids no matter what.”

  I feel myself turn and look at her in the dark. I can’t really see her, but I feel her, and I hear her.

  “Why in God’s name would you think I wouldn’t?” I ask.

  “I’m just scared,” she says after a moment.

  “I know.”

  “Are you?” she asks.

  “I’m scared of what I’m becoming,” I tell her. “Scared of what I’ll be after all this is over.”

  “Do you think it will ever be over?” she asks, her hand finding mine, our fingers curling in to each other.

  “No.”

  Whoever said honesty was the best policy was probably a sadist.


  Chapter Ten

  DAY 4…

  We thought we’d be leaving at first light. Then Ice goes and says, “One last run,” and we all begrudgingly agree that our thinking has been a bit premature.

  Things in the neighborhood are calm, the air smells relatively clean, and there’s no one in sight. This is the day the rubber meets the road, but even Brooklyn knows we’re leaving with a half-empty war chest and limited defenses. Eliana offers to stay with the cars, the bus and the trailer. Everyone else splits up and heads out with a modified supplies list.

  My team and I are able to find a few things in a house five blocks down, one we hadn’t been through that proved to be empty. Unfortunately, none of the loot is edible.

  We need food!

  Kamal finds the combination to a well hidden safe containing ten thousand dollars in twenties, a four pack of walkie-talkies, a .38 special (no ammo) and a stack of pictures of someone who looked like his wife in bondage pics with a studded leather strap-on and handcuffs.

  “I want to see that,” Kamal says, trying to get his eyes on the pictures.

  “No way,” I tell him, throwing them back in the safe and shutting the door. He gives me a hard look and I tell him, “That right there is the gateway drug to perversion.”

  “That wasn’t a drug, it was a picture of a woman.”

  “You’re still a child.”

  He lets out a harrumph that’s kind of funny, but I don’t crack a smile because Nyanath is in the other room and I’m not about to have her thinking I showed her little brother porn.

  “At least we have money and the walkie-talkies,” he says.

  In the laundry room drawer, Nasr finds fresh batteries. I open the pack and try them in the two-ways. They work.

  “I’ll be damned,” I mutter with a grin on my face.

  Apparently the safe acted as a faraday cage for the electronics, protecting the walkie-talkies’ internal electronics.

  And who says God is merciless?

  Later that morning, Orlando finds a stash of extra bedding, some sleeping bags and pots to cook with. It’s not even close to everything we need, but it will do.

  “Time to go,” I say.

  We head back and everyone’s there with whatever they could find, which wasn’t much. It turns out the walkie-talkies get the blue-ribbon prize for being the best find. Naturally I give Kamal the credit.

  “We found some pictures of a naked woman with a penis, too,” Kamal says, much to the concern of Nyanath. Seeing the look on his older sister’s face, however, he quickly adds, “But he wouldn’t let me see them.”

  Nyanath is looking at me funny.

  So is Adeline.

  “I couldn’t help what we found, but I did stop him from looking,” I say, my hands up in a don’t shoot fashion.

  By the time we load the bus, we look like vagabonds, and the biggest targets ever.

  “We’re so screwed,” I tell Ice privately.

  “I know,” he says.

  So this is the order of the procession: Me, Adeline, Brooklyn and Bianca in the lead in the Barracuda; Ice, Eliana, Carolina, Orlando, Veronica, Constanza and Alma in the bus; Xavier, Nyanath, Kamal and Nasr in the Dodge Pioneer; and Draven, Morgan, Chase, Ross and Phillip in the Chevy Byzantine.

  We do a head count before we leave.

  Twenty on the dot.

  “This is insane,” I mutter to myself as I head up front, climb into the Barracuda and fire that monster up.

  I’m halfway up the block when the dread sets in. I feel the blood drain from my face and suddenly my stomach is roiling, making it known that the anxiety is now manifesting into a physical discomfort that might very well lead to projectile vomit.

  “You okay, Dad?” Brooklyn asks.

  She’s the intuitive one.

  “Yeah,” I say. I want to elaborate, but doing so will only lead to more questions and that will eventually lead to agitation.

  W. 47th St. out of the Kenwood neighborhood is pretty much a straight shot to Hwy 55, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy run. For awhile, things get really hairy. Someone starts throwing rocks at the bus, then a glass bottle, and at one point, we cross through some kind of a gangland war zone. Two people pile on top of Draven’s car, but Chase sticks one with his knife and the other jumps off.

  The bus takes three shots, one of them putting a hole in one window right next to Constanza, whom Eliana told us through the two-ways, barely even moved.

  “She’s not feeling well,” Eliana says before signing off. “I don’t think it’s serious, but we’ll keep an eye on her.”

  Adeline says, “She told me this earlier, but I thought maybe she was just dehydrated.”

  “That’s the last thing we need,” I tell her. “A sick kid.”

  Any sickness without pharmacies or doctors could be life threatening. Fortunately we have a few Amoxicillin pills, and that seems to be keeping whatever it is at bay. Still, if she’s so out of it she’s not even responding to gunfire, it could be something more than dehydration or a common cold.

  We get through the mess, find our way onto S. Central Ave. and shortly after that, Hwy 55. The highway isn’t too bad, all things considered. It does, however, require some navigation and a fair amount of improvisation.

  The view of the city from the freeway proves to be nightmarish. There are columns of smoke everywhere, bullet holes and what look like mortar divots in the asphalt and lots of destroyed cars. Bodies hang halfway out of some of the cars, while there’s a big-rig smashed into a guardrail with a woman pinned between them, half her face burnt off.

  Hopefully the kids are averting their eyes.

  “Don’t look,” I tell Bianca. But the nine year old is looking. As is Brooklyn.

  “Brook…” I warn.

  She turns Bianca’s head away, pulls the girl close and says, “We don’t need to see anything bad like that.”

  “Is she alive?” Bianca asks in Spanish.

  “If she was alive she would be hurting,” Brooklyn answers the child, “but now she’s in heaven and not hurting at all.”

  “I want to be in heaven,” she says.

  “Maybe soon,” Brooklyn tells her, the girl seeing only the upside of leaving this life behind, nothing at all about the downside of getting there.

  We come up to a roadblock that’s not official at all. It’s just five old cars and a bunch of guys blocking the road. By now the cops, the medical personnel and even emergency services have gone home to take care of their families. This, of course, leads to situations like this.

  “There must be ten of them,” Adeline says.

  “I’m counting eleven,” I say.

  I discretely get on the walkie-talkie and say, “Eleven ahead, potential hostiles, ROE suspended. Weapons hot.”

  “You know we have weapons but almost no bullets, right?” Ice keys into the two-way.

  In the side mirror I see the line of cars and the burning heat of the day beating down on the road we’re leaving behind. But then I see a guy on a bicycle riding up next to the Chevy Byzantine Draven is driving.

  The fifties style sedan swerves a bit, causing the biker to veer away in response.

  I slow down ahead, one eye on the men stepping forward and holding up their hands, the other on the guy on the bike.

  Just then I see muzzle flash and the guy on the bike…his head jolts sideways, which sends him and his bike toppling over. The dead guy and the Schwinn slide to a stop.

  “Dammit,” I growl.

  “What?” Adeline and Brooklyn say together.

  “Draven just shot someone on a bike,” I mutter to them both, concealing the movement of my lips. “I think he was with them. These guys ahead.”

  The men ahead are now agitated and yelling at us to stop. I’m practically stopped. Brooklyn looks out the back window and says, “Eliana,” and then two barking retorts signal the start of a firefight.

  I expect a hail of return fire, but fortunately it seems the men have limited
ammunition. Unfortunately, they’re armed with other weapons. The kind you don’t want to get close to. I’m pushing the door open as two hostiles jump on the hood of the car. Something blasts one of the guys in the face, but that something drops on the hood of the car and it’s a rock.

  “Orlando,” I think to myself.

  That kid and his slingshot…

  As I’m scrambling out of the car to save our makeshift windshield, the other guy lifts a boot to stomp it in, but he gets a rock to the nuts and the boot never hits the glass. I drag them both off the car while Ice, Draven and Xavier rush past me in a clash of weapons and wills.

  This fight to the death is all well and civilized until it’s not. Xavier stands up, ripping a miniature Louisville slugger bat out of one guy’s hands; Ice kicks aside one of the men whose throat he cut with a big blade; Eliana joins the mix, walking casually with Orlando—our long distance fighters; but Draven…

  Draven takes out two men, one stacked on the other, and he’s beating them with the porcupine stick over and over again, bodies becoming meat and meat becoming pulped gore.

  We all just look at him until he gasses out.

  Standing up, wavering as he looks around, he seems to have this fogged over look in his eyes. Behind Eliana, Morgan watches this. Pushing past us, she takes the bat and sets it aside, then cradles his face and looks into his eyes.

  Whoa…

  I can’t tell if this is a mother’s gesture, or a lover’s gesture. Either way, this breaks the trance we all fell into and then it gets us moving.

  Ice drags the bodies aside, then Eliana, Orlando and Xavier search the cars for possible food or supplies.

  “Candy bars!” Orlando says.

  “Are they melted?” Eliana asks, obviously not wanting to get her hopes up.

  “A bit squishy, but they’ll do,” he says, tearing open the wrapper on a six pack of full size Snicker’s bars.