Hell's Children: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (10 page)

Lisa cursed under her breath. “Your parents, I swear. Laying all that on you. It wasn’t fair.”

He laughed drily. “But they were right. Who knows, maybe it’ll pay off.”

After they parked, the children practically boiled out of the bus, running between the different model homes or out into the huge field of tall grass. Jack saw a herd of deer in the distance flee from the commotion and wished he’d thought to bring his rifle down with him.

Then, looking at the quiet cabins, he climbed back up and got it for a different reason.

“Expecting trouble?” Lisa said.

“Yep.” He grinned. “Mostly as a policy. Let’s grab the others.”

They met between the vehicles with Greg, Brad, Tony, Pete, and Olivia.

“I’m pretty sure we’re the only ones here,” Jack said, “but we need to know. So, groups of two. Don’t bust into anything. This is our new home and we should treat it that way.”

It turned out all the cabins were locked up tight, as was the trailer, and no one was inside when they looked through the windows.

Greg said, “I bet the keys are sitting in there somewhere. We won’t be living in the trailer, right? Doesn’t have a chimney.”

Jack conceded the point. “Pete, where’s that crowbar you had?”

“In the car,” he said, not moving.

“I’ll get it,” Brad said and stood in front of the smaller boy. “Keys.”

Pete handed them over with a sullen expression. Minutes later, Brad had the door open with minimal effort. When they went in, they found an office with a number of desks laden with computer monitors, brochures, and office clutter.

Sure enough, hanging on the wall as if waiting for them were keys numbered one through four.

T
he four model
homes each had different names, chosen by the company to match their sizes or other appeal.

The Paul Bunyan model was the smallest. It had a large bedroom, a loft, and a single fireplace with a stove you could cook on.

The next biggest was the Abe Lincoln. It was like the Paul Bunyan, but wider, and had two bedrooms on the main floor.

Still bigger was The Skyline. Longer in shape, this one had two fireplaces—a stove-free unit in the living room wall, the other in the fancy dining room at the far end. The stove in the dining room had a cook top. The kitchen was in the middle, and like the other two cabins, basically useless without electricity. The Skyline had five bedrooms—two small ones on the first floor, three upstairs, and three bathrooms. Without plumbing, also useless.

The biggest cabin by far was The Saskatchewan. With six bedrooms, it was built up and out, and very much
around
. It had an enormous great room with a nice fireplace, as well as one with a cooking surface set between dining room and kitchen, just like in the Skyline. Everything about the cabin looked super expensive, from the bearskin rugs to the multiple flat screen televisions and exercise room. It also had a kitchen that was bigger than the main floor of Jack’s old house. There were huge windows that couldn’t open, a soaring ceiling, and a spiral staircase that looked carved by hand.

When Jack had come here with his parents, he’d loved the Saskatchewan the most because of how big it was. Standing there now with Greg and Lisa, he gazed upward and said, “That’s a lot of air to keep heated.”

“Well, we got all that wood outside,” Greg said, a note of longing in his voice.

It was true. Each cabin came with a decorative diagonal sweep of stacked wood just beside the front door.

“That won’t last but a week or two,” Jack said. “Which brings me to my first concern: sleeping arrangements.”

“I want my own cabin,” Greg said, grinning at the space around him. “This one will do.”

Jack smiled politely, but he was nervous. If people became grasping, that’d make it harder for everyone.

“This one’s way too big,” Jack said. “We’d be forever chopping wood … if we actually had something to chop it with. I’m thinking the Skyline makes the most sense. Just like at the Welcome Center—only each of the adults gets a room of their own.”

No slouch at math, Lisa said, “There are seven
adults
, Jack, and only five bedrooms. Someone has to room up.”

He leered at her. “Well, if you insist …”

She punched his arm just shy of painfully.

“Violation!” Greg said in a robotic voice. “Do not talk to my sister that way.
Beep!
Brotherly expression of outrage executed.
Beep!
Duty completed.”

Lisa punched his arm, too.

“
Beep!
”

Jack peeked outside to make sure none of the others were around, then motioned his friends deeper into the cabin. The little kids were exploring the upper floor and not paying attention.

He lowered his voice. “What I’m about to say will sound self-serving as hell.”

“Nothing new there,” Greg said.

Jack didn’t smile. “I know I’ve sort of jumped in and started acting like I’m the boss or something. How do you guys feel about that?”

Lisa said, “You’re doing great. We’re not dumb, we get it. Someone has to lead, and I honestly need a break. Keeping everyone fed without getting murdered in our sleep …” She shook her head. “I’m worn out.”

“And I’m too busy with more important things,” Greg said, still trying to tease a smile from his suddenly serious friend.

Jack nodded. “All right. I think Brad and Olivia are on board, but Tony will need to see you two defer to me on things. He’ll see that and stay in line. Pete’s the biggest problem. That stunt of his, leaving us like that …”

“Maybe he wasn’t thinking,” Lisa said, frowning. “Or just assumed we were fine.”

“Maybe. If anything like that happens again, we deal with it right away. Agreed?”

As one, the twins nodded.

“Great,” Jack said. “Now, for the cabins. I want everyone in the Skyline, with you and Olivia sharing the master bedroom. It sucks, I know, but Olivia’s sort of delicate right now, and I’d really appreciate it. Everyone old enough to carry a gun gets a room.”

He paused, waiting for Lisa’s input, then decided her stony silence meant he could continue.

Swallowing, he said, “The little ones will share the living room. We’ll bring in mattresses from the other cabins so it’ll be comfortable and warm, and relocate the couches and tables. We’ll take the stove from the Abe Lincoln and set it up in the fireplace.”

Lisa—who was
still
good at math—cleared her throat. “With Olivia and me sharing a room, and all the
boys
getting their
own
, that leaves us a room short.”

“Um, yeah,” Jack said. “Okay, so here’s the self-serving part.”

Greg laughed. “There’s actually
more?
”

“If I’m playing as leader, it makes sense for me to sleep in the Paul Bunyan.” He paused, gauging their expressions. Then he added, “Alone.”

Lisa shook her head, perplexed. “Why would you do that?”

Greg coughed, “
Chosen one,”
and covered his mouth with a hastily raised fist.

“Shackleton,” Jack said, glancing at him. “You’ve read about him, right?”

“We watched the documentary,” Greg said. “It was cool. You’re right, you should totally do that.”

Lisa stared from one to the other. “Right about what?”

Greg said, “
He’s
the captain. Shackleton had his own room because he was the captain. Captains need to be mysterious. They can’t mingle too freely with the enlisted men. Ol’ Jack here has to stay aloof. It’s a leadership thing. Psychology. Man stuff.”

Lisa stared at him like his hair was on fire, her whole manner incredulous. “Well would we be allowed to come
over
sometimes, oh captain, my captain?”

Jack nodded. “Whenever you want. As leaders, we have to maintain our distance a little. That way, when we give an order, the children will be more likely to obey. They won’t be little forever. You’ll also have your own rooms, for the same reason. We’ll take planning meetings in the Bunyan. When I’m alone, I’ll be sleeping. Not that big a deal. My biggest concern is wasted wood. Once we get some axes, I’ll pull double duty on chopping.”

Lisa didn’t seem convinced.

Jack said, “Look, if it was just us, it’d be different. But the stakes are too high. We don’t want people having to guess who’s leader or where their place is in the pecking order. There’s a lot of work ahead.”

She raised her hands in surrender. “Okay, fine. I think it’s stupid, but whatever.”

Greg threw an arm around her. “Look on the bright side, sis. You get to bunk with Olivia. You can put in a good word for me.”

“How’s that the bright side?”

He smiled and patted her gently. “It just is.”

* * *

W
hen Lisa broke
the housing arrangements to the others, she didn’t give a reason for Jack getting his own cabin. Only Tony seemed to notice the difference, but he stayed silent. The others just nodded.

Olivia was still too frail to do very much, so Jack asked if she wouldn’t mind watching the children.

“Only until you get your strength back,” he said.

“Sure,” she said, smiling shyly and tugging a lock of her green hair. “I’ll keep them out of the way.”

Ever since she’d decided to throw in with them, Olivia seemed to have perked up a little, and she’d dropped the bad attitude. Both good signs, though Jack wasn’t so naive as to think she was suddenly all better.

For the next few hours, Jack and the others moved mattresses, bedding, and chairs from the other cabins. Box springs and frames were deemed unnecessary and left behind. All the beds had been furnished with sheets, covers, and pillows, so those were kept too. In total, they got twelve mattresses of varying sizes, because some bedrooms had been furnished with two doubles. Most of the beds were king-sized, offering plenty of room for the twenty-one children to bunk together.

It was early afternoon when they finished. After that, they all went to Jack’s cabin and sat in the comfortable chairs in front of a new fire.

“We’re not done yet,” Jack said around a mouthful of protein bar. He’d doled out the last of them to each of the leaders. The little ones had eaten rice and beans, prepared by Olivia after Lisa got the Skyline stove working.

Tony muttered under his breath.

Lisa said, “You got a problem? Spit it out.”

He pointed at Jack. “Why we gotta do what he says?”

Jack said, “You don’t have to. But this is my place. I found it, I brought us here, and I’m in charge. If you don’t like it, we can drop you off somewhere cold.”

“And what if I don’t want to go?”

As tense as the room had gotten, Jack smiled easily. “Do you really want to take it there, Tony?”

The younger boy glanced from Jack to Lisa, her face hard as a stone, then to Greg, no less yielding, and then back again. “Nah, man. Just seeing what’s what. It’s cool.”

Jack nodded and looked at each of them. “We have a number of pressing issues and not a whole lot of time. Chief of which is the bathroom situation. The cabins have toilets, but they were never hooked up to working plumbing. We definitely don’t want the children using them, so we need to somehow keep them shut.”

“How about that superglue Lisa fixed the safe with?” Greg said.

“Great idea,” Jack said. “We’re also going to need shovels. That pond gets fed from the hills behind us. In my opinion, it looked clean. A stream runs from the pond down through the valley. Fish swim upstream just as often as down, so we can’t go dumping our waste there.”

Brad smiled. “Fish? Really?”

“I saw some trout last time I was here,” Jack said. “It’ll be fun to go fishing, but only after we deal with the sanitation problem.”

Olivia cleared her throat. “We should dig a ditch away from the water, down where the woods begin. At night, we can leave buckets outside the cabin. That way nobody has to walk in the dark and maybe get hurt or eaten by something.”

Pete snorted, and Greg glared him into silence.

“That’s a great idea,” Jack said, trying not to smile. “But there’s nothing up here that can hurt us.” He thought it over. “Well, not anytime soon. A black bear, maybe, if you startle it. In time, I imagine the mountain lions will work their way back, but it won’t be this season. Oh, Lisa, what time is it?”

She looked at her watch. “One thirty. You know, we should probably all get watches.”

“Good idea. We also need more tools. Shovels for ditches, axes for chopping wood. Tony, Pete: if you continue past the turnoff, you’ll come out of these hills into farmland. Around here, every house will have tools. Get them and Brad and I will do the work.”

“Don’t forget toilet paper,” Olivia added.

Tony nodded. “If we find something else, can we bring it back?”

“Sure,” he said. “Food, those watches she mentioned, ammo, guns, whatever. But don’t take too long. In the hills like this, it gets dark earlier. And hey—if you see smoke from any houses, stay away from them.”

Pete spoke up suddenly. “Is it okay if we bring Mandy?”

“Is she needed? She’s kind of small.”

“That’s because she’s nine,” he said, snorting. “Take it from me: she’s a good scavenger. She’ll be fine, trust me.”

The request hung in the air uncomfortably. Though Jack was inclined to say no, he didn’t want to be a tyrant who made all the decisions for everyone. That and he was glad Pete was at least trying to help out now. He hoped to encourage the trend.

Slowly, he nodded. “All right. But you’re responsible. Anything else?”

Both boys shook their heads—Pete impatiently, Tony as if he couldn’t believe they were taking a nine-year-old girl with them.

After they left, Jack said to Olivia, “You were great with the children today. You don’t have to be stuck with them if you don’t want to, but right now …”

She nodded. “Yeah, I know. I’m a toothpick.”

“Your words, not mine,” Jack said, embarrassed. “I’m just saying we need you stronger. Your main job is to eat. If you could keep watching the little ones for now, it’d help out a lot.”

“I like children. It’ll be fun.”

“They’re the future, as they say … or used to say.” He shook his head. “We need to teach them. And ourselves, too.” He turned to Lisa and Greg, gathering his words. “I’ve been thinking—we need to loot a library, or a bookstore. Find stuff on raising animals, farming, medicine, math, that kind of thing. Whatever we can grab before some
cabbage
comes along and uses it for kindling.”

Brad said, “Cabbage?”

“Don’t ask,” Greg said, rolling his eyes.

“What about history?” Lisa said. “Fiction?”

Jack frowned in thought. “History for sure, but maybe a later trip. Fiction, too. All work and no play and I’d be pretty dull, right?”

Olivia laughed and Greg joined her, grinning foolishly when she glanced at him.

“I guess that’s it for now,” Jack said, getting up. “Any questions?”