The Survivor Chronicles: Book 1, The Upheaval (19 page)

He bit into another Twizzler, and even though his jaw began to ache, there was something soothing about the repetitive, familiar motion of chewing. Carl took another handful as he swerved back onto the road. “Do you think the army is going to come anytime soon?” John asked.

“I don’t know.” Carl glanced at the radio, his hands twisted on the steering wheel. “Do you want to try it again?”

“Not even a little bit.”

He leaned forward and clicked the radio on anyway. This time there wasn’t any squealing, or strange noises. Nothing filled the airwaves as he twisted through the stations before turning the radio back off. He tossed the Twizzler’s aside, his appetite effectively squashed by the silence. Carl lit another cigarette; John had never seen him smoke this much in a week, never mind a few hours of a single day.

Carl leaned forward and grabbed something off the dashboard. John didn’t see what it was until Carl tossed it to him. “I grabbed it from the gas station. See if you can figure out where we are.”

“I suck at reading maps,” John muttered.

“I know.” John scowled at him as he unfolded the map before him. It was bad enough trying to figure out The Cape, an area that he knew well, but trying to sort out this convoluted mess was enough to make his head throb. He didn’t even know where to start. “The last road we passed was Jones. Can you see that anywhere on there?”

John searched the map key for the road. “Jones Road or Jones Ave?”

“Road.”

John traced over the lines before finding the right Jones. “Got it.”

“Can you figure out the best way to get to Bridgewater from here?”

John twisted the map in his hands, turning it first one way and then the other. Carl sighed heavily; he rolled his eyes as he pulled the truck to the side of the road. “You’re really should learn how to do this, especially now.”

Carl tugged the map from his hands and laid it out between them. “Hold it this way, and line the roads up.” Carl had tried to teach him this before, when they’d been trying to find a new home on their mowing route, but John had never paid much attention. What was the point of learning to use a map when he could get directions from a GPS at the drop of a hat? He now had the answer to that question, and for the first time he actually paid attention as Carl showed him how to read the map. “Think you can handle it?”

“Yeah.”

Carl handed the map back to him. “Then let’s find your parents.”

He shifted the truck into drive and pulled back onto the road. They drove slowly, with John navigating his way through some more back roads. His attention was focused on the map so he wasn’t expecting it when Carl forcefully slammed on the brakes with a loud squeal of tires. John smashed awkwardly off the dashboard, his head glancing painfully against the windshield. The map crumpled against his chest as he swore viciously and profusely. His shoulder ached; his hand was numb as he fumbled to push himself away from the dashboard.

“What the fuck is wrong with you!?” he snarled.

Carl sat stiffly, his mouth ajar and his face pale beneath his baseball cap as he nodded to the front of the truck. Standing mere feet in front of them was a young girl, with her hands thrown up in front of her face, as if that would miraculously stop the truck from running her over. She gradually lowered her arms and stared at them like they were a velociraptor that was going to eat her for lunch. Dirt, and what appeared to be soot, streaked her face and coated her clothes. Her long coffee colored hair was matted to her oval face.

“She just jumped in front of the truck,” Carl’s voice was shaky and strained. “I didn’t see her. I almost hit her.”

The girl ran around to John’s side of the truck, she pounded on the window as John continued to stare at her like she was the extinct dinosaur. “You have to help me.” Deep brown eyes pleaded with him as she slapped on the glass. “Please. Help me.”

“Open the door,” Carl commanded.

“I thought we weren’t trusting people,” John retorted.

“She’s a child for crying out loud. Open the door.”

John fumbled with the lock; the girl stepped back enough for him to open the door and then plunged into the truck before he even had time to move over. She was practically sitting in his lap as she slammed the door shut, slapped the lock back into place and spun toward Carl. “Drive!” she ordered briskly.

John squiggled out from underneath her, scowling as he was pushed into the middle of the truck. He couldn’t help but glare at her, but she chose to ignore him as she braced her hand on the dashboard. “Faster! It’s coming!” she urged.

“What’s coming?” John demanded, trying to scavenge the crumpled map from underneath the two of them.

“Fire," she breathed. "I think it’s still right behind me.”

“You think? Get off our map!” he snapped in frustration.

The girl’s eyes widened, guilt tugged at him as she recoiled slightly. “John,” Carl hissed.

“Sorry,” he muttered as he was finally able to salvage the map. It was far more wrinkled, and a corner had been lost, but overall it was still in fairly good condition as he attempted to smooth it out.

Then he heard it. A loud pop that swung his head toward the woods the girl had plunged out of. In the distance, trees bent over, shattered, and toppled into the woods. Carl’s foot eased on the gas as he turned to survey the spreading destruction. The acrid scent of smoke filled the air seconds before flames leapt high into the air.

The conflagration was massive; it was relentless, and deadly. And it was heading straight for them.

CHAPTER 14

Mary Ellen

Newport, RI.

Mary Ellen held the sack of food over her head as she followed carefully behind Al. Her arms ached from the weight of it, but she didn’t dare lower it or the water would ruin their food. Al poked at the ground, with the long stick he had fished out of the water, before taking every step forward. The water was down to her knees now, but it was impossible to see the roadway below, the water was too murky from the sand and debris the tsunami has kicked up. Sweat trickled down her back, hair tickled her neck and face, but she couldn’t push it away.

Al stopped as the stick dropped away, sinking to almost his hand within the water. Mary Ellen stood silently behind him, her heart hammering as he continued to prod the ground carefully. He began to move sideways, searching for solid ground again as he poked to the left of him.

Mary Ellen glanced over her shoulder to the school they had left behind. The others were still gathered on the roof, watching as she and Al moved steadily away from the safety that the roof had represented. They had chosen to stay behind, opting to wait for the water to recede further before taking the risk of trying to cross through it. She began to rethink their decision to leave.

Frustration filled her as they moved a hundred feet at a parallel angle before Al finally found solid ground again. Mary Ellen kept her gaze focused on Al’s back; she couldn’t bring herself to look at what was floating in the water with them. She’d seen enough of them already, and she was terrified that one of the bodies they might run across would be Rita’s. She wasn’t entirely sure she could handle that on top of everything else right now.

“I think we’re almost out of it,” Al muttered. Mary Ellen could only manage a small nod, one that he had to turn to see. “You okay?"

No, she wasn’t okay. She was sweaty, filthy, terrified, aching, beaten and sore. She was also alive. It was a lot more than a lot of people could say right now.

“Yeah, I’m good,” she assured him.

He continued to poke ahead of him as they made their way around the corner of a building. She glanced back, catching a glimpse of the three people on the school building as they moved across the rooftop in order to keep her and Al in sight. They wouldn’t be able to see them for much longer. Al stopped in front of her as they arrived at a section of road that had been completely blocked by debris and cars.

Sighing softly, he tossed the stick onto the roof and climbed the hood of a busted and beaten Nissan. Uneasiness filled her as she watched him; he wasn’t moving as fast as he had been this morning. Holding out his hand, he helped her climb onto the hood of the car. They stood, trying to catch their breath, enjoying being out of the water as they surveyed the damage surrounding them.

It took her a minute to realize that the temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees since they had exited the water.

“It’s the water that’s making it so hot,” she whispered, her gaze sliding over the substantial storm surge that had buried half the town. There was more than just garbage, debris, and bodies floating amongst the water. Dead fish were also beginning to pop rapidly up; their lifeless and bulging eyes caused her stomach to turn. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not good.”

“It feels twenty degrees warmer than it should.”

“That it does.”

He climbed over the side and slipped back into the awful stream. The last thing she felt like doing was crawling back into that germ-infested mess, but she couldn’t sit on the hood of the car forever, not if she was going to find Rochelle. Mary Ellen followed closely behind him, hating the feel of the water as it enveloped her once more within its heat. Her heart hammered. She had a brief vision of every lobster she had ever seen tossed into the pot. She couldn’t shake the lingering certainty that she was about to become one.

As they moved, she became aware of more eyes on them. People gathered to watch them silently from roofs and the doorways of buildings as they passed cautiously by. Sweat trickled down her face and back even faster, she wasn’t entirely sure if it was from the heat anymore or those eyes. Ahead of them she spotted only three other people in the road, carefully picking their way through the debris and water too.

“It’s so lonely.”

She hadn’t realized she had spoken aloud until Al stopped to look at her. His gaze darted over the buildings before he turned toward where the sun had finally broken completely free. “It is.”

The water began to lessen; she sloshed through what was becoming more of a puddle than a stream. A glance over her shoulder revealed that the school was no longer visible. She said a quick prayer for the continued safety of those still on it and turned away. There was no looking back anymore, there was only forward from here on out.

Her feet squished in her shoes, water splattered off of them like a dog shaking its wet coat as she stepped onto blessedly solid, dry ground again. A breath escaped her on a loud rush of relief.

“We have to find a car,” Al said as he scanned the broken and mottled street. There were cars parked along it, but most of them appeared to be damaged by water, falling debris, or accidents.

“What about trying to find emergency help?”

“I don’t think they’re going to be of much use to us right now. We’re going to require a car to get to your daughter.” The thought of Rochelle brought tears to her eyes. She couldn’t speak around the lump that formed in her throat. Al studied her sympathetically before squeezing her arm gently. “We’ll find her.”

“I know.” They had to find her, because if they didn’t find Rochelle than Mary Ellen had no idea what she was struggling to survive for.

“Come on.”

They trudged down the road until they arrived at a section of town that didn’t seem as badly damaged as the areas they had just left behind. Her feet were rubbed raw and sore from her wet sneakers, but she continued stalwartly onward. She would love to find a car just so they could sit, just so she could give her brutalized feet and legs a blessed reprieve.