At the End - a post-apocalyptic novel (The Road to Extinction, Book 1) (12 page)

Jelly and Tortilla lifted Jacob off the
pavement. A spray of gunfire hit the SUV as they crossed over the
threshold of the jewelry shop. I stooped down below the main window
of the store. Bullets pierced the car and carried on to the
storefront and its windows. The glass shattered.

“Out the back,” I yelled. They nodded.

“The bags,” Tortilla said. “What about the
bags?”

“Penelope has the guns.”

“We need the food and water. Your axe is in
there, too,” he reminded me.

“Give me some cover fire,” I said. He
nodded. We bolted out the door, crouched. I grabbed the bag of
inhalers out of the backseat, while Tortilla shot off a few rounds,
arms unfolded across the wrinkled hood. I tossed the bag to Jelly,
who hunkered down by the doorframe. I crept over across the
backseat, my heart racing. The assault rifle rounds made easy work
of the car, but I was already in the rear, dashing out the
hatchback with all the bags I could carry. “I’m good.”

Jelly smiled at me when I reached him.
“Almost as if we really were trained.”

“Yeah, almost. We should keep going. Where
are Jacob and the sisters?”

“Uhrm. Jacob woke up and took them out the
back,” Jelly replied.

Tortilla was running so fast, he almost
toppled over us as he stopped in front at my feet. “Go.” He grabbed
a few bags and headed for the back. Jelly and I followed, loaded
with our own duffels and backpacks. I had strapped my axe across my
back, but it hurt with the weight of the pack compressing the haft
into my spine.

Jelly whirled. “The bows.”

“Leave them,” Tortilla said. “We don’t have
time, they have assault rifles, bromigo. The bows don’t
matter.”

Convinced, Jelly whipped back toward us and
hustled out the backdoor of the shop. We emerged into a deserted
alley, devoid of even recycling dumpsters. “Where do we go?” Jelly
asked.

I inhaled a deep breath. “South. We keep
going south.”

Jelly squatted next to the twins. “We’re
okay. It’s okay. We won’t let them hurt you.”

They stared at him, horrified, yet calm.

“Let’s go,” I said, pointing southwards.

“I don’t think I can walk very far,” Jacob
said. “It hurts everywhere.”

“You won’t have to, just far enough until we
can find our next ride,” I told him. My lungs were expanding too
fast, sucking in hot air, choking on white mucus. “You can make
it.”

“I could use a drink. Where is that
vodka?”

The three of us laughed.

“Dude, you drank all that vodka,” Jelly
said. “It’s gone. I told you to make it last.”

“I don’t remember drinking any more of it.
Damn.”

We began walking south, down the wide alley.
Jacob had his arm wrapped around Tortilla for support.

“Uhrm. That was some nice shooting,” I
overheard Jelly say to Penelope.

“No, it was some nice luck,” she replied.
“Thanks for being so sweet to my sisters. They really need it.”

“Glad to assist,” he said, clearing his
throat. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he was blushing. “I
think they are the calmest out of all of us, but also the most
scared. They’re holding it together way better than I would if I
were their age. How old are they?”

“Eleven.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t have made it so far at
eleven.”

We came to the end of the alley, to a once
busy street, seven lanes across. “Search the SUVs for keys. They’ll
be best,” I said. I climbed into the driver’s seat of some Lincoln.
“No key.”

“No key in the Honda,” Tortilla
reported.

“Yeah, no key in the Ford,” Jelly said.

“Here! Found a key in the Nissan,” Penelope
shouted. She started it up. “We’re good to go.” She slid out of the
seat. “You can drive. It’s Maggy, right?”

“Yeah, Maggy. Long days take their
toll.”

“Yeah, I remember you told me yesterday, I
just . . .”

“No problem.” I didn’t have any words of
comfort, so I untied the axe and threw it in the trunk, then jumped
into the rig, ready to peel away. Once the car was loaded, I did
just that, turning back onto the main street, heading south. I
didn’t see the two men behind us anywhere, but that didn’t mean
they were gone.

“I knew one of them,” Jelly said so quietly
I almost didn’t pick up his words.

He was sitting behind me, and I looked at
him in the rearview mirror. “You knew one of them?”

“Yeah. You remember me always telling you
about my crazy neighbor, the Troll. Well, the one they called
chief, that was the Troll.”

I scrunched up my face in disgust. “You
sure, bromigo?”

“Uhrm. I swear.” Jelly fiddled with an
inhaler, tempted to use it. “He has a face you don’t forget. I know
he’s a registered sex offender. He would have done . . .” He
trailed off, not wanting to finish.

“You never told us that before,” Tortilla
said.

“Yes I did. You just weren’t listening. It
was a few years ago, on the day Battle We Cry came out.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I probably wasn’t
listening.”

Jelly continued to play with the inhaler,
nervous. “Well, anyway, now you know.” He began popping off its
cover and replacing it.

The twins were asleep when I pulled into a
driveway of a two-story home a few streets west of the main road we
had been traveling on all day. We had made it to Tacoma, full of
great towers, but we stayed outside the city, in the suburbs.
Tortilla and I had inspected the entire SUV, finding no trace of a
locator beacon. Hopefully the alions didn’t have more than one
design.

The house was stocked with cans of food,
mostly soup, and we boiled three cans of chunky tomato and four
cans of vegetables with beef. It was nice to have something hot in
the stomach. So many lights were still on in the neighborhood that
we didn’t bother trying to hide in one room with one soft light for
all of us. We did stay away from the windows. That memory was too
fresh and real, too sickening to even consider looking outside.
Once we were in, we were in.

We walked on our knees, out of sight from
anything searching the interior from the outside, though our
shadows were a problem, and everyone tried to stay still after we
ate. Jelly, Tortilla, and I had taken off our aluminum foil garb.
It was so noisy and crumpled up, none of us bothered to don new
sheets.

Jelly and Penelope talked in a corner. It
sounded like they were discussing video games, but I wasn’t sure.
The twins were asleep on a nice leather couch a few meters away
from their big sister. Penelope giggled quite a bit; it was
slightly irritating.

“You all right?” Tortilla asked as he caught
me staring at Jelly.

“I’ve been better, that’s certain,
bromigo.”

“You should be happy that she is here and
talking to Darrel,” Tortilla said. He scooted up on a nice dining
chair with a tall back.

“She’s just new, that’s all. I don’t know
her. I think that’s why I’m a little uncomfortable.”

He leaned forward, gazing at me. “Well, she
sounds pretty cool. She plays all the games we do. I think it will
be good for him; it will help us, you know . . . he won’t feel like
the third wheel.” He rubbed my leg, gentle and with care.

I smiled at him. “Yeah. I’ll just have to
get to know her.” I drank some water, dehydrated.

He nodded. “Looks like we’ll have some time
for that. I’m going to go lie down, I don’t know how any of us are
still awake.”

I yawned. “Good idea. We shouldn’t turn off
the lights, I think that would be a bad idea, maybe dim some of
them.”

“Yeah, I don’t want the lights off either.”
He walked over to Jelly and Penelope. “We’re going to sleep, mind
if I dim the lights?”

“Go ahead, man,” Jelly said. “Sleep sounds
like the right idea.” His eyes watered after he yawned. It went
around the room, the contagious yawn. Jacob slept in a recliner,
out minutes after we had eaten.

“I’ll take watch,” Penelope said. No one
argued.

I lay out on the floor, in front of the
couch that the twins were resting on. Everyone said their
goodnights until at last sleep overtook the room.

I stirred awake when I felt something knock
my arm. I opened my eyes and saw a thick black boot. It was nestled
against my sprawled out forearm. I looked up and saw a shadow bent
over me, and in an instant, the shadow retreated with one of the
twins. My eyes popped. The boot sneaked back a few steps, silent.
Then the light destroyed the shadow that hid the figure.

A wiry man held Jane tightly across her
stomach, with a bright silver pistol digging into her temple.

I sprang to my feet. “What are you
doing?”

“Shhh. I’m taking this one. I’m going to
have myself some fun. You killed my partners, now I’m taking one of
yours.”

“We only killed one.”

“Freddy was as good as dead when you wounded
him. I couldn’t let him suffer, oh no. But this one . . .” He
squeezed Jane and she cried out. “This one is all mine.”

Everyone else stirred awake when they heard
Jane. “Penny! Penny!”

The Troll shoved the pistol harder into her
skull. “Shhh, little princess. None of that now.” He took a step
back.

Penelope, who had fallen asleep slumped
against the couch, now aimed a gun at the Troll. “Release her!”

“Oh no, this little princess is mine.” He
jerked Jane up so that her head blocked his throat. He walked
backwards until he stood at the open front door. “You took mine.”
He laughed, a strange, treacherous laugh. He was completely melted.
But he was spry, with agile feet, and quickly disappeared out the
door.

“What do we do?” I asked.

“Is that even a question?” Jelly said,
annoyed and frightened.

The hunt began.

We gathered everything up and crept out into
the rising sunlight. “Look.” Penelope pointed to an aluminum can in
the driveway. She picked it up and inspected it. “There’s a note
inside.”

“What does it say,” Jelly asked. He stood in
front of her, with his arms around Amanda, who kept asking if Jane
was going to die. We had to ignore her after the tenth time.

“I want to play, oh, I want to play. Follow
the trail. Follow the trail. At nightfall I’ll have my fun, oh,
I’ll have my fun. Tomorrow I’ll take the other one,” Penelope
read.

“What trail?” Jacob asked.

Tortilla ran out into the street and bent
low to scoop up another can. “I think he is dropping cans for us to
follow.”

“Is this real? Is this really happening?”
Penelope said. “Some melted bastard has abducted my sister . . .
Aliens have abducted the rest of the world, this is all real?” She
hung her head, tears overflowing. “All I did was fall asleep . .
.”

Jelly wrapped his arms around her. “We’ll
get her back, don’t worry.”

“How do you know?”

“Because we have to. He wants us to find
him, so we will,” Jelly assured her.

“Let’s get to it then,” I said. I started up
the SUV. The rest climbed in. Penelope and Amanda sat together in
the back next to Jelly. Jacob sat in the front, and Tortilla
scouted out the rear in the trunk space.

The driving was slow. Olympia shot up into
view in the afternoon. “How many cans do we have?” I asked.

“Thirty-two,” Tortilla replied. He kept our
collection in the trunk with him. Why did we keep them, I didn’t
know, probably should have dumped them, but we didn’t.

“Thirty-two,” I whispered. The Troll had
been leaving them in plain sight for us to find; he really wanted
us to follow him . . . that was certain. I pressed down on the GO
pedal after we collected thirty-three. He had led us to a fancy
neighborhood, where the houses were mansions, with massive yards,
pools, tennis courts, full-sized basketball courts, the works.

“There’s one in the driveway to the left!”
Penelope shouted.

I pulled in, and everyone hopped out, except
for Jacob, who was sleeping off his aches.

Penelope snatched up the can. “There’s
another note inside. It says: Good, good, you found me. I’m inside
where the lions await, guarding his prey . . . The sick bastard,
I’ll kill him, I will.” She started for the door. Jelly
followed.

“Wait,” I spoke up. “I don’t think he’s in
there.” I surveyed the neighborhood. “I think he is in that one.” I
pointed to an even larger house, two houses down, across the
street.

“What makes you say that?” Penelope
asked.

“Look at the huge brick columns. There is a
lion’s head mounted to each one.”

“Always so observant,” Jelly commented. We
all walked over to the mouth of the long driveway. The black metal
gate rocked in the breeze. “So what’s the plan?”

“Two of us go behind the house, two of us
through the front,” Tortilla said.

“We’re not trained for that,” I argued. “We
might accidently shoot each other.”

“Maggy is right,” Penelope agreed. “We all
have pretty shaky nerves right now.” She bent down to her sister.
“Sorry kid, you have to go keep Jacob company. We can’t leave him
out here alone.”

“He’s not nice,” Amanda blurted. “I don’t
want to be alone with him. I’m going with you.”

“You can’t. I’ll get Jane back, I promise.
But you have to promise me that you won’t go in there. A
not-so-nice guy is much better than that monster in there. You
understand?”

“We’ll get Jane back,” Jelly added.

Amanda nodded and walked off to the SUV.

I had two handguns. Tortilla had two
handguns. Jelly carried Jacob’s OMP2s, and Penelope loaded Jelly’s
shotgun.

She smiled at us. “I know how to use it.
I’ve hunted pheasants before with my grandfather. Granted, this
shotgun is older than mine, but I’ll be fine.”

Jelly nodded at her. “So through the front,
or through the back?”

“The front,” I said. I didn’t have a reason
to start there, but we were already there. I tried the doorknob; it
was unlocked. “Ready?”