“He’s still alive?” Kalen asked.
“I think so. I mean I don’t know what happened afterwards. I just grabbed my sisters and we ran. We hid in the fields for almost two days.”
Kalen’s grip on the water bottle tightened, causing the plastic to crack and crumple from the pressure.
“How many?” Kalen asked.
“How many?” Mary repeated.
“How many gang members were there?”
“I’m not sure. I only saw around ten, but there could be more, that’s why we have to get out of here. We need to get in that Jeep and drive as far away from this place as fast as we can.”
“And go where?”
“Someplace safe.”
“There isn’t anyplace safe anymore.”
“We can’t just stay here forever.”
“No, but we’ll stay here for as long as we can and do what we need to do to make this place safe.”
“What are you talking about? Those people out number us. They have guns. They don’t care who they kill. They don’t care who they hurt. They’re animals.”
“Then we’ll hunt them down and kill them like animals.”
Day 10 (Mike’s Journey)
The “Welcome to Ohio” sign dripped with water from the storm that blew through earlier. Once Mike saw that sign he knew they were at the halfway mark. The caravan of people behind him was spaced out along the highway, huddled in their own separate groups.
The To family walked directly behind Mike. Fay, Nelson, and Sean were to his left. Tom and Clarence brought up the rear.
They hadn’t run into another person for almost three hours, and Mike was glad. The people they ran into were interested in either one of two things: following them or hurting them. So far they’d been lucky enough to avoid the latter, but Mike knew it was only a matter of time. If they ran into a group large enough with the guns and manpower to take them they’d be in trouble.
Everyone, but Mike, seemed to think that the road was safer than staying at the airport, but they hadn’t experienced true desperation yet. They hadn’t felt it put its hands around their necks, trying to squeeze the life out of them, draining their energy and resources until there was nothing left.
Mike feared that the people he was helping now would soon turn out to be his enemies. He desperately wanted to believe that the people walking behind him were good, decent people, but he also knew what a man could do when he was hungry enough. And what happened to the man who was foolish enough to feed him.
Jung walked up beside Mike, carrying his daughter, Claire, on his back, her head resting there, her thick black hair clinging to her forehead from the sweat collecting on her face.
“How far along are we?” Jung asked.
“We’re halfway. If we keep us this pace we should be there in less than forty-eight hours.”
“That’s great news.”
Mike glanced down at Jung’s belt. He held no knives, pistols, or weapons of any kind.
“Jung, you should carry the extra pistol. If something happens or if we get separated you’ll need to protect your family.”
“I am protecting my family, Mike. Men fool themselves into thinking that the justification of violence for protection safeguards them from it. All it does is paint a target on your back signaling those who share your views that you will have to face each other and fight until one of you dies.”
“You think that because I carry a gun that it invites, rather than deters, danger?”
“No. It’s the mentality of how you carry the gun and why you have it. If someone came out of those bushes with a knife in his hand and saw that you had a gun, he’d know the only way to get what he wants is to kill you. If he doesn’t kill you, then you’d kill him. If a man pops out of those bushes and pulls a gun on me and I have nothing to counter him he’ll be less likely to pull the trigger.”
“Only if you give him what he wants.”
“What I want is my life and the lives of my family to be safe. That’s what I want. I want to be able to ensure that my family has the chance to survive and go on.”
“Well, your family won’t survive for very long without the supplies those people with guns take from you. You can only go three days without water and a week without food. If what you have on your back is it, then that is your life. You keep that, then you’ll have a chance at survival. You don’t get to keep it, well, then you’re better off having the robber shoot you then and there.”
“Don’t lose your faith in people, Mike.”
“I haven’t lost my faith in people. I’ve just lost caring about them.”
The thunder from the storm clouds in front of them rumbled through the sky. The storm was moving away, but in the same direction they were heading.
Sean and Jung Jr. splashed in the puddles left in the road when the storm passed through earlier. Claire frowned, but Jung and Nelson both gave their boys a good-natured smile. With all of the things that were going on in the world, seeing their boys laugh and act like kids was worth the cost of their shoes and clothes getting muddy.
Sean kept pretending that there was something in one of the larger puddles, trying to pull him in. Fay kept egging him on with her laughter.
“Your boy’s quite the comedian,” she said, looking at Nelson.
“His mother’s the funny one. I’ve been told I have the sense of humor of paint thinner.”
“Well, depending on how much paint thinner you sniff you could have one hell of a time.”
Fay held the other rifle in her hands that Mike and Clarence grabbed from the weapons cache at the airport. She kept the barrel leaned up against her shoulder as she walked.
“What happened?” Fay asked.
“To what?” Nelson said.
“Your wife.”
“She’s a Vice President for an engineering company in Pittsburgh. She was in the city when everything stopped working. We stayed at the house for almost a week, waiting for her to come home, but after what happened in our neighborhood, we left with Mike.”
“What happened to your neighborhood?”
“The same thing that happens to people who give up.”
“Which is?”
“We forget how to be human.”
“Maybe it’s just how we really are.”
“You really think that? You think that we’re such a depraved species that at the first sign of trouble we all turn on each other like animals?”
“Nelson, we’ve both seen what people can do when they’re desperate. They don’t have any rules. They don’t have any principles. They just go by what they need at the moment. With everything that’s happened people aren’t planning for the future, they’re not showing restraint. They’re only worried about what they’re going to get their next meal, and they don’t care how they get it.”
“I don’t think so. I think we can still get out of this. ”
Fay raised her arm, her gesture encompassing the scene around them: the scattered abandoned cars with their windows smashed, the rising of fires in the distance sent smoke into the sky.
“Look around, Nelson.”
“I am.”
Fay noticed that Nelson wasn’t looking at her when he said that. His eyes were focused on Mike, up ahead.
Fay remembered her conversation with Mike the night before they left the airport. She wanted to believe what Nelson was saying was true. She wanted to believe that Mike could get them out of harms way and keep them safe. She wasn’t sure what was more frightening though, the fact that she could actually able to believe it, or that she was resisting it so much.
With the sun fading in the sky Mike decided to call it a day. The sighs of relief immediately followed.
A forest ran parallel along the highway. Mike picked out a spot on the tree line where they’d be concealed from view by anyone on the road, but still close enough to jump back on it quickly if they needed to get out in a hurry.