FORSAKEN: THE SYSTEMIC SERIES (25 page)

But then I realized, if these lights weren’t natural, then they were manmade, and manmade could mean trouble.

I walked quickly back to the front porch to alert the others, never taking my eyes from the lights, which appeared to be coming from each of the homes around Olsten, and were growing in size by the minute.  That’s when it hit me…they were fires.  Somebody was setting our town ablaze.

I darted up the front porch steps. 

“FIRE!”
I yelled, dashing through the storefront and continuing on back to the stairway and up the stairs to the second floor.  I flung the door to our apartment open. 
“FIRE!”
I yelled again. 
“They’re setting fire to the town!  Will!”
I cried. 
“Get your gun!  Claire!  Sharron! Get the kids down to the basement!”

Then I raced upstairs to the third floor apartment, shoving the door open. 
“Ray!  Get guns and ammo and meet me downstairs, they’re setting fire to the town!”

I hustled back downstairs, but by the time I got there, it was too late.  Dad and Emily were hurriedly dressing themselves in their first-floor bedroom as I heard vehicle engines outside on the street.  Seconds later, there was the sound of smashing glass and an eruption of flames on the front porch.

“They’re burning the building!”
I yelled.
  “Out the back!  Grab everything you can!”

There were two more crashes of glass as objects smashed into the front windows and the room lit up from outside with flames that quickly spread across the porch and up the dry wood framing of our old store.

I stepped to the front door to survey whether it was possible to combat the flames, but a hail of gunfire drove me back inside and I dove for cover behind the store’s huge front counter.       

I crawled along behind the counter until I could safely stand, and then I made my way back upstairs.  Along the way, I yelled,
“Grab what you can!  The store’s on fire!”

I burst back into our apartment.  It was hard to see, but the growing flames outside were providing some light through our windows.

I found Claire throwing on clothes.  Jason was sitting on the bed in his underwear crying.  “Get Jason out of here!” I shouted.  “Grab anything you can save on the way and get out back!”  I grabbed several rifles and a can of ammo along with Claire’s diabetic supplies.  “I’ve got your supplies,” I called to her.  “Follow me down.”

She grabbed Jason, his clothes, and a few other items and followed me back out to the hallway.  Will, Sharron and the kids met us as we made our way out to the landing.

“What’s going on?” Will said.

“The building’s on fire,” I explained.  “Get the kids outside and then help me save what we can.  Guns, ammo, food, medicine, and water…those are the priorities.”

Ray and Pam came rushing down the stairway behind us.  I didn’t even wait for them to ask, giving them the same rundown.

At the bottom of the stairs, we met dad and Emily.

“Wait here,” I told the group now formed behind me.  “Will, Ray…come on.”

I didn’t want to lead our families outside and into the path of danger if there were armed intruders still present.  I led the two men out the back and around front, ready for anything.  But it was quiet outside now, the night illuminated by the numerous blazes burning around town.  All we found was an empty street.  In the distance, I could see taillights disappearing down Main Street between the burning homes and back towards the direction of the pond.

Across from us, Mary’s was on fire.  Flames were also shooting out of the post office’s front windows.  The decrepit old building next door to the store was engulfed. 

The entire town was burning. 

I turned to see the front of our own building being licked by flames as they crawled their way up the walls and inside through the front door.

“Come on,” I said to Ray and Will.  “We’ve got to get everything we can out of the store before the entire place burns to the ground!”

They followed me around back to where the others were waiting.  We got the kids sheltered by the pickup parked nearby, handed over our rifles to the women, and charged back inside.  The first thing I did was to close the door dividing the store area from the rear of the building and the back staircase leading up to the apartments, hoping that it would help slow the spread of the fire and buy us a few extra minutes.  Then we ran back upstairs.  There, Ray and Will collected the rest of the guns and ammo while dad and I grabbed pillows from the bedrooms and shed them of their cases which we then began filling with all the food we could grab.  With three of them a piece crammed full, we hustled them back downstairs and dumped their contents out on the ground.  “Claire, can you grab stuff from the basement?” I asked, tossing her the padlock key and not waiting for a response before hurrying back upstairs.   

Will and Ray’s next trip was for additional food, toiletries, and any medical supplies.  While the fire had yet to break into the upper floors, the smoke pouring through cracks around the windows and doors was growing thick.  Just as we made it back downstairs with our loads, the closed door separating the front of the store from the rear staircase began to give way to the fire, releasing a wave of scorching hot air as flames began to fight their way through and around it.

Knowing that it was getting too dangerous to attempt another trip upstairs, we helped Claire move stuff from the basement.  We managed to collect a lot of the preserves as well as about 50 one-gallon jugs of water.  At one point, I was carrying three jugs in each hand.  But soon, smoke engulfed this lower portion of the building as well, and fearing a collapse from above, we were forced to abandon our efforts.

We fell exhausted on the ground a safe distance from the store and watched as it burned before our eyes.  It didn’t take long.  With no rain for months, the place was a tinder box, and about ten minutes after we’d made our last trip, the roof collapsed.  Shortly after this, the third floor went, taking the second, and then the first floor along with it down into the basement.  And about forty-five minutes after the whole thing started, our store – along with the rest of Olsten – was completely burned to the ground.

Our group sat in stunned disbelief.  We had expected another attempt on the garden, maybe a confrontation of some sort, or even a possible exchange of gunfire, but not this.  We didn’t even know who our attackers were.  There had been no warnings, no gradual escalation, just a well-coordinated attack that resulted in complete and total surprise and had laid waste to our entire town. 

We had been ready, but not for this, and the more I thought about it, the angrier it made me.  I was mad at myself for not having us better prepared, but I just hadn’t envisioned such an all-encompassing attack.  I thought something directed solely at us or our residence, but not at the
entire
town.  I hadn’t even considered it.  And why?  Why had they gone this far?  Why hadn’t they just tried to make contact with us to see if something couldn’t be worked out?  And why were they so pissed off in the first place?  Was it because of the water?  Were they just asshole people who didn’t want us around?  Were they afraid of us? 

I couldn’t make sense of it, and this left me even angrier.  Back in Illinois and in Tennessee, at least I could see some method to our aggressors’ madness; but here, I didn’t even know who our assailants were or why they they’d picked us as targets.  I
did
have to admit that their tactics were extremely effective though.  I could see no other way forward but to leave.  If their goal was to be rid of us, it had certainly worked.  And this probably made me angriest of all. 

I stood up and walked over to the truck.  I punched the door’s side panel hard with a fist, actually denting the metal.  “
Fuck!
” I hissed.  “
Fuck!  Fuck!  Fuck!
  I can’t fucking believe this!  Here we are
again!  Why?
” I cried, looking up at the sky.  “
Why?
  Why can’t we just live in peace?  Fifty fucking people left in the whole fucking world and we can’t just leave each other the fuck alone?”

Everyone was looking at me, but I didn’t care.  I was tired.  Tired of relocating. Tired of starting over. Tired of planning.  Tired of preparing.  Tired of constantly trying to see the future and failing.  For the first time since the flu, I actually found myself truly longing to be back in our old society.  Sure, I had missed things about our old way of life, but until now, I felt that we had a chance of succeeding in this new world given a chance.  But now, I was starting to feel like we might not make it.  I was physically and mentally exhausted, and the thought of having to start all over again – to have to load up the truck and find a new place, to lay down roots, and try to get everything set up again – left me feeling even more exhausted and apathetic. 

For the first time since the flu, I felt hopeless.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the group, shaking my head.  “I’m sorry.  I’ve let you down.  I should have seen this coming, and I didn’t.  I’m just…so…sorry.” 

It was all I could muster.  I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and anything else I could have said would largely have been pointless anyway.  I’d blown it, and I knew it, and all the responsibility I could take for it now wouldn’t matter.

Ray walked over and put his arm around me.  “We’re all alive…and unhurt…that’s all that matters,” he said.  “None of us want to start over, but we can, and we will, and we’ll succeed.  You’ll see that we succeed.”

Then he hugged me. 

I don’t think that Ray had ever hugged me.  Heck, I don’t know if I’d ever even seen him hug Pam.  It wasn’t much, but it was enough.  It was what it took to pull me back to reality. 

I nodded and took a deep breath.  “Okay,” I said.  “Okay.”

I looked around at the ground, now blanketed with an assortment of supplies.  There were piles of food, jugs of water, boxes of medicine and personal care items, guns, ammo boxes, stacks of clothing.

And then, as I stood their absorbing the entirety of the situation, it started to sprinkle, the raindrops landing like tiny cold bugs upon my face.

I looked up at the sky.  It was thick with clouds that masked the stars.

I started to laugh, “
Really?!
” I cried.  “You’ve got to be
fucking
kidding me!” I held my hands up to the sky.  “
Now?  After all this time?
”  I just stood there looking up at the sky, shaking my head and laughing.  It was all I could do to keep my sanity.

“Alright,” I said after several seconds, pulling myself back together and taking over, “let’s get this stuff loaded onto the trailer and covered up.  Get the guns and ammo stashed in a dry place first.  Ray, Will, dad…help me unbolt these water tanks from the back of the truck.  Claire, put Jason in the truck’s cab so he’s out of the way!  Sarah, you keep an eye on him.  Claire, put Cashmere and your diabetic supplies in there too so they’re safe.”

And so we spend the next hour, loading up the few remaining possessions we had, slipping in the mud and soaked to the bone in the pouring rain.

“There’s got to be a place,” I said as Will and Ray helped me lay a tarp we had salvaged atop the supplies in the trailer and secure it. 

“What do you mean?” asked Will.

“A place where we can finally be safe…where we can avoid all
this
,” I gestured around me at the charred and smoking rubble that was now Olsten.

“We need a castle with a moat where we can pull up the drawbridge and just be left alone,” said Ray jokingly.

“Yeah…no kidding,” I agreed, considering his words. “Easier said than found though.” 

Ray’s words stuck a chord with me though as we finished up loading the supplies and securing them to the truck and trailer.  I decided to make them my next area of consideration as I climbed into the pickup’s cab and fired up the engine. 

Claire sat with Jason on her lap in the middle of the front seat, and Pam – since she was pregnant – got the other front seat spot to keep her out of the rain.  Cashmere settled upon her lap for the ride.  The rest of the group sheltered in a makeshift tent we’d erected in the pickup’s bed. 

I slowly pulled the pickup and trailer from around the pile of rain-soaked and smoking debris that had just hours earlier been our home for the foreseeable future, and out onto what had once been Olsten’s Main Street. 

Now it was just a road – a road to nowhere.

Chapter 20

While Ava had been handling the pump stations’ second floor, Jake had been down at the front door.  He didn’t have time to worry about where she was or what she was doing. He had swarms of Three Family soldiers heading for the building’s entrance where he had but a paltry few men – most of whom were wacked-out drug addicts – there to defend his fortress.  At first, the addicts had been cutting down men left and right.  They were all psyched up on their drug of choice up and laying down an insane amount of fire, burning through ammo like crazy; but that was fine with Jake, they had the ammo to be burned through.  It was like shooting fish in a barrel.  But Jake remembered that Ava had expected this.  She had told him that the families would likely use their dregs as decoys and cannon fodder as a way to get a read on where they had positioned their defensive emplacements.  Then they’d move in with core of their assault teams.