Crashing Down - A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (The Ravaged Land Series Book 3) (22 page)

I
dropped the gun
. It felt hot and if I held onto it any long I’d get burned. The world started to spin, and I stumbled like I was going to faint. Was I falling? Was I moving? It felt like the earth had sped up its rotation and I was going to be launched into outer space.

It seemed like Penn had lost his grip on me and I was plummeting through the dirt down towards the earth’s core. Or maybe I was going to hell. Not that I believed in hell… or did I? I couldn’t be sure what I believed anymore. Not after what I had done.

“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to kill anyone,” I said, but I wasn’t sure if the words actually came out of my mouth. It felt like I was moving around in a dream. But not just any dream. It felt like a dream where I was drowning. My air supply was being cut and I couldn’t breathe. It felt like I was going to die. I needed to pay for what I had done.

There was another set of arms around me. Was there blood on my arm? Was it my blood?

“You saved my life,” the voice said. My eyelids fluttered as I looked for the owner of the voice. I was spinning around in a tornado with Dean.

“I killed him,” I cried out loudly over the swirling winds. The tears started to flow down over my cheeks like someone had turned on a faucet. I knew I was losing my grip on reality, and I didn’t know how I would find it again. It felt like I was stuck somewhere between two different worlds. And it was a very unpleasant feeling.

“You saved me,” Dean said, and I saw his face clearer. The tornado started to dissipate. And I started to see trees behind him.

“We have to go,” another voice said. Penn. It was Penn. “I’ll carry her if I have to. They probably heard the gunshots.”

My legs were moving and everything that moved in front of my eyes looked like a blurred mess of dark colors. I saw shadows that I knew were evil and they were coming for me. They were trying to make me go with them instead of following my friends.

“I don’t want to go with you,” I said my voice weak and hoarse.

“What?” Dean said pulling me along with one arm.

“Not you, them. I don’t want to go with them.”

But he couldn’t see the shadows. He was blind to the evil because he was good. Pure. He hadn’t done what I’d done.

“Penn,” Dean said, and I felt like maybe I had been drugged as I tried to focus on his face. The more friendly faces I saw the more the world came back into focus. The evil that was following me faded further into the background. We were outrunning it. Everything started to become clearer again. The evil was letting me leave.

“What?” Penn said breathing heavily. He almost seemed annoyed at the idea of having to talk.

“The blood… it’s too much,” Dean said as he slowed down.

Penn stopped and rubbed at his neck muscles as if they were sore. He looked at Dean’s arm. The blood was practically gushing out of his arm. His shirt and jacket were soaked. Based on the look on Penn’s face it seemed as though he was surprised he had made it this far.

Penn ripped off his t-shirt and zipped up his jacket. He tied the shirt as tightly as he could above the wound on Dean’s arm. “That should help for now. We have to keep moving though,” Penn said making eye contact with Dean as if checking to make sure he understood.

Then he looked at me. It was as if he wanted to make sure I had found my way back to the real world. Maybe he had done the run from darkness and evil himself and knew what I had gone through.

“It’s OK…, I think I’m fine,” Dean said grabbing his arm before we started our run through the trees to wherever it was we were going. The only bright side to all of this was that we were leaving the resistance camp behind. We were leaving HOME behind. At least for now we were.

I glanced over my shoulder and saw an orange glow lighting up the dark sky behind us. They had set the camp on fire. Everyone and everything inside that camp would be burnt to a crisp by morning. There would be nothing left.

* * *

I
t felt
like we had been running for days but morning was only starting to show its first light. The sun was beginning to peek out over the horizon and with the amount of light it provided, I was able to see that we were walking right towards a big city.

Penn picked a house seemingly at random. But knowing Penn he probably had his reasons for selecting it.

The houses that were still standing, which seemed to be quite a few, were in fairly good condition compared to other houses we’d seen in our travels. That would hopefully be a good thing. We entered one of the smaller homes and cleared it the same way we always did.

The house was fully stocked with canned goods, some bottled water and even some medical supplies. I wondered where everyone in the neighborhood had gone when the world had ended. Had everyone left everything behind? And why hadn’t anyone come back here to stock up on supplies? Maybe we had just gotten lucky when we needed it the most.

We locked ourselves in a bedroom just in case HOME was still behind us. Or maybe there was another kind of danger that was lurking about.

Penn and I carefully examined Dean’s arm. The bullet hadn’t gone into his arm, instead it looked as though it had cut a path through the side of his arm. The flesh was shredded around a big gash, but there was no bullet hole.

“I think it’ll be OK as long as it doesn’t get infected,” Penn said as he folded several pieces of the gauze we had found in a bathroom closet. Dean winced when Penn pressed it against the gaping wound.

The bleeding had already slowed significantly, but judging by the look on Dean’s face, the overall pain was increasing. I tore off pieces of the medical tape and put them on top of the gauze to hold it in place.

“Whoever lived here must have been a nurse or a doctor based on all the medical supplies I saw downstairs. Like a whole closet full. Medicine too,” Penn said as he peeled off another piece of the medical tape.

“And these canned peaches really hit the spot,” Sienna said, attempting to chew what looked like six slices at one time. We were all watching her try to manage the huge mouthful. “What?”

“I’m going to go through the medical closet. And maybe I can find a backpack or two,” Penn said as he made a mental list.

We could probably survive in this house for a month, but Penn had no intention to stay any longer than we had to. It was still too close to HOME. If they weren’t following us, they would come this way sooner or later. And we would need to be long gone by the time they did.

Then again, maybe they were heading this way right now and it was already too late. We were taking a big enough risk by staying here for even a little while. “I’ll be back,” Penn said as he disappeared from the room.

I snuggled up next to Dean. My appetite hadn’t come back since… well, since I’d killed Ryan, but it would come back. And when it did I would be ravenous, but I hadn’t been able to come to terms with everything.

“Thank you again,” Dean whispered into my ear before he kissed my cheek. “I’d be dead if it hadn’t been for you. I love you. If there is anything I want you to know it’s that. Before something happens to me, I want you to know more than anything else how I feel.”

“Don’t say that!” I said but I knew he was right. Anything could happen to any of us at any time.

“It’s true. Promise me you’ll never forget,” Dean said as he stared into my eyes.

“I promise,” I said but my body still couldn’t relax. A small, sharp breath escaped from between my lips, “I love you too.”

I meant the words, I really did, but I still felt too awful about everything to put the feeling behind them that I should have. It was all so strange. I never thought I would be capable of killing another person. But I guess to save the life of the person I loved, I did it automatically. I reacted without thinking and without even realizing.

Ryan had saved all of our lives when the storms first hit. If it hadn’t been for his grandpa’s shelter we’d all have been dead. But that Ryan, the one that saved us, died after the dog-beast bit him. He was gone once HOME turned him into something else.

The Ryan that had pointed his gun at Dean, that hadn’t been our Ryan. It wasn’t that I was trying to come up with excuses for what I had done, it was just a fact. I killed a HOME army person to save the person I love. I did the right thing, no matter how awful I felt for having done it.

I was starting to worry that something had happened to Penn when he finally returned with two backpacks full of items. It was as though he had gone shopping and the house had been his store. He was carrying fresh clothing and towels in his arms. Now if only he had a working shower that would pop out of his pocket.

We would probably need to change Dean’s bandage frequently. Especially until the bleeding came to a complete stop. The blood was already starting to soak through the white gauze we’d only applied a short while ago. I worried that maybe he was losing too much blood.

“I also found these,” Penn said with a smile as he dangled car keys in the air. “We can go as soon as Dean feels up to it.”

“Let’s rest a little longer… we all need it,” Sienna said, as she fought to keep her eyes open.

“Sure, OK, but you can sleep in the car,” Penn said dropping the keys into his pants pocket.

“A bed… just for a little bit…,” Sienna said, giving up the fight against her eyelids. The last few hours had been exhausting. Hell, the last few weeks, months… it had all been exhausting. And it felt like we would never be able to catch up on sleep.

Penn stared out the window while we rested in a pile on the bed. I had trouble sleeping. It was even worse than usual. The nightmares and the thoughts wouldn’t let my body relax. I’d see myself holding the gun and every time I pulled the trigger, it would startle me awake.

If Penn was tired, he hadn’t said anything. I couldn’t remember the last time he had gotten any sleep. He probably needed it more than any of us. He’d been fighting and running around keeping us safe and alive. Yet here he was still wide awake. Perhaps the adrenaline was still flowing through his veins.

“You should rest,” I said rubbing my hands against each other like I was washing them with air.

“No. I’m fine. If I lay down now, I might not ever get up,” he said with a half-smile. “We just need to get further away. Then I’ll be able to rest.”

I nodded. It wasn’t like I wanted to hang around any longer than I had to either. Although, this was a nice house with a very comfortable bed.

It didn’t matter how far we got from this location. There would always be another HOME group. There would always be spies and probably more resistance camps too.

And I’d always remember too clearly what I had done to Ryan. What I had to do, but it would haunt me forever and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Maybe I’d never be able to have restful sleep again. Maybe it’s why Penn never seemed to get much sleep. It was harder to sleep when the evil popped into your dreams to taunt you.

“I’m going to load up the car,” Penn said as he grabbed the bags and disappeared from the room.

It was maybe a half hour or so later when he returned and said it was time to go. He was anxious. Penn couldn’t wait any longer.

He led us out to the car, and we followed close behind as if we were afraid someone might jump out at us. Sienna climbed into the backseat and I helped Dean into the other side. Penn looked over everything he had packed. It looked as though he was checking things off of a mental checklist.

I sat down in the passenger seat. My eyes closed as I pushed my head back against the headrest. I was ready to go. Ready to get away. Ready to make a plan.

We had a little trouble at first finding the highway but once we did we were faced with a choice. We could go east or we could go west. The choice was an easy one to make. Penn turned east towards Colorado.

While Sienna slept and Dean rested, Penn and I talked about what to do… where we should ultimately go. We were both more than ready to be done with HOME and resistance camps and fighting.

“Let’s find an old abandoned farm. Something in good shape. Grow some food. Hide from everything and everyone,” I said looking out the side window. All we had to do was find a farm in the middle of nowhere that was secluded and still in decent condition. How hard could that be?

“Sounds perfect,” Penn said as he drove the car down the lonely, abandoned highway. It was just us and the road and that was fine with me.

“Yeah… perfect,” I said, closing my eyes and imagining our future. I smiled at my vision. While I would rather none of this had ever happened, it had, but I could live with the future I was seeing.

Somewhere we would be able to find our new home. Dean would heal. We would live together on a farm. Build ourselves a nice little fortress where we were safe, and we’d eat fresh grown vegetables. We’d find a place near a clean stream and have unlimited fresh water.

We’d never hear another word about HOME or the resistance. It would just be us, living out the rest of our days peacefully. I cemented the image into my brain.