In The End: a pre-apocalypse novel (17 page)

Inside the cabin, everyone was calm and still as if they had
been frozen in time. When Jim shut the door after escorting the crazy killer
Carl out, everyone came back to life at once.

"You can’t just let him go,”
Monica cried out.

Jim stared back at her in response.
He was as freaked out as everyone else—but he kept it inside. Jim took a deep
breath and let it out slowly, looking at Terry as he did so.

“Let’s not worry about him for now.
People in here need help,” Terry said.

Terry turned around and looked
first at Bo, who was taking shallow breaths, lying on the floor with his arm
around his mother. Then he looked down the main hall. It was empty.

One of their medics was dead and
the other was wounded. Terry looked at Trey and Monica, hoping they could help
somehow.

“Do either of you know anything
about first aid?”

Trey and Monica quickly glanced at each
other, then back at Terry, both of them shaking their heads. Terry turned to
Jim with a lost and sorrowful apology in his eyes. He didn’t know what to do.

“Someone go get Angela from the
kitchen, along with some towels. Try to stop the bleeding. I’m gonna check on
Tori,” Jim instructed.

Trey rushed to the kitchen as Jim
walked down the hall calling out to Tori so she wouldn’t be scared just hearing
footsteps coming toward her.

“Tori.
It’s safe to come out now. Are you okay?” He heard her answer from the
manager’s office where she had helped remove the bullet from Carl’s back only
moments ago.

“Are you sure he’s gone?”

“I’m positive. He’s outside, either
freezing to death or dying. Monica shot him.” He stopped at the doorway and
looked in. Elizabeth was holding her mother and crying. Tori had her good arm
around her daughter.

“I think Liz is okay; just a little
bruised, but I’ve been shot.”

“I know. We need to do something
about that. But we need you to tell us what to do.”

Trey entered the kitchen and didn’t
see anyone. He called out, “Angela? Are you in here?” She answered from inside
the pantry.

“Is it safe out there?”

“Yes. Carl’s gone. He left with a
gunshot wound that he won’t survive. But either way, the door is locked and
it’s safe now.”

The pantry door opened and Angela
peeked out with one eye opened wide. Her pupil was enlarged and her skin was
pale. She slowly opened the door enough to slip out, looking around and
assuring
herself
that the kitchen was really safe.

“Jim said we need to get some towels.
Try to stop Bo’s bleeding. Do you know where some towels are?”

Angela nodded, but didn’t say
anything or move to help.

“Where would that be?”

Angela pointed down the short hall
that ran behind the walk-in cooler.

Trey approached her slowly and turned
down the hall, looking in cabinets as he went. He found the towels and grabbed
a stack, holding them between his hands like a vertical accordion.

“Thank you,” he said, passing
Angela as he headed back to the main room.

Angela stayed where she was, watching
his back as he walked away.

Tori looked down at the wound in
her arm for the first time, having only been concerned with consoling Liz until
now. She lifted her arm up and peered at the underside.

“It went through. I’ll be fine. I
just need to stop the bleeding—and keep it from getting infected.”

“Jim, you asked for towels? I gave
some to Monica already.”

Jim turned around and took the
stack that Trey held out to him. He set them on a fax machine next to Tori,
wondering why anyone still faxed.
Or did, anyway.
He
imagined they’d have to resurrect the Pony Express now if what he’d heard on
the radio was really happening.

“I’m going to need help getting
this shirt off. Can you ask Monica to come help me?”

“She’s
tryin
’
to help Bo, and he
don’t
look so good.”

“I’ll see if I can get Angela for
you,” Jim said, and quickly walked out.

“Liz, honey, I need you to stay
with Uncle Trey for a bit. Maybe you guys can find some snacks in the kitchen.”

Trey bent over to pick up Liz and she
reluctantly but willingly let go of her mother, then wrapped her arms tightly
around Trey.

Jim entered the kitchen and saw
Angela standing like a statue. Then her eyes shifted toward him and a spell was
broken.

“Jim!” Angela rushed toward him and
hugged him fiercely. “Thank God you’re okay!” Then she suddenly released him
and stepped back a few feet, examining him from head to toe. “You are okay,
aren’t you?”

“As one of the people who didn’t
get shot, I’m great. How are you?”

“I’m… I don’t know.” Angela came
forward and resumed hugging him. Feeling safe, and relieved that Jim was okay,
she held him and cried. “I was so scared.”

“It’s okay now. Everyone is going
to be fine.
Except for Bo.
I don’t think he’s gonna
make it.”

“Oh God,” she said, and squeezed
him harder.

Jim mentally chastised himself for
doing a piss-poor job of comforting her. He instantly redirected his self-anger
toward Carl, wanting to go find him and beat the shit out of him for terrifying
Angela. He hoped the bastard was suffering right now.

Jim spun around when he heard the
door open behind him. Trey took one step into the kitchen and stopped, looking
at the couple and feeling like he’d interrupted something private.

“What’s up?” Jim asked.

“Uh.
My
sister wants to know if you can help her,” Trey said, looking at Angela, then
at Jim, as if seeking her assistance and his approval.

“Oh yeah.
I came in here to get you. Can you help Tori? She needs to stop the bleeding on
a flesh wound and she wants to get out of her bloody shirt. And since she has
boobs, she prefers help from someone else who has them too.” He shook his head
in mock dismay.

Angela was almost irritated at Jim
and then realized that she was oddly comforted by him acting strange. It was
like a small sign of things returning to normal. If Jim was being weird, then
things had to be okay.

Angela wiped her eyes and said,
“Sure. I’ll help her. I don’t know how, but I’ll do whatever I can.” She kissed
Jim and he noticed that her lips felt very hot even though her skin felt cool
and looked pale. He wondered if they could recreate the effect with something
less dangerous than a shootout.

“I’ll see you in a bit,” Angela
said, giving Jim another quick peck on the lips before exiting the kitchen.

“How’s Bo
lookin
’?”

Trey shook his head. “I don’t know
shit about medical stuff, but I’d have to say he’s near the end. And Monica
don’t
know what to do for him. We really need Tori’s help.”

“Yeah,” Jim said. “We’ll ask her to
help him as soon as she has her own gunshot under control.”

“Aw shit, I didn’t mean…”

Jim held his hand up to stop Trey.
He smiled and quoted a line from Monty Python in an English accent, “It’s just
a flesh wound.” Trey laughed and felt like he shouldn’t be laughing.
“Seriously though.
She said she’ll be fine. As soon as she takes
care of herself, she’s our only hope for helping Bo.”

“I should’ve killed him when I had
the chance. This is
all my
fault for not killing him.
But at the time…”

“Tell me later. For now, let’s see
if there’s anything we can do to help Monica with Bo.”

“Right.
Good idea.”

“Jim!” Terry called out from the
other side of the door.

Jim ran past Trey and into the main
room. He saw Terry still kneeling next to Bo, holding kitchen towels against
the side of his ribcage.

“Go look through our medical
supplies and find this guy some pain-killers. I don’t know if we’re can save
this guy, but we should be able to at least ease his pain.”

“Right.
Be
right back.” Jim ran down the hall and into the supply room.

“He’s really cold,” Monica said,
holding her hand on Bo’s forehead.

“Maybe we should move him next to
the fireplace?”

Monica’s muscles ached at the
thought of trying to move another inert man.

“We can try, but he’s really,
really big.”

“We’ll wait for Jim. I don’t know if
it’ll do any good. I’m just
graspin
’ at straws here.”
Terry moved the folded towels away from Bo’s side and saw that they were
saturated. He grabbed two more of the thin towels, folded them a few times and
pressed them against the adjacent bullet holes.

“I think the bleeding may be
slowing down,” he said.

“Or he’s running out of blood,”
Monica replied. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she brushed Bo’s hair back from
his forehead.

Jim came back and handled several
prescription bottles to Terry. He looked at them, made a choice, and tapped out
four pills. He asked Bo to open his mouth, but Bo didn’t respond so Terry
pressed down on Bo’s chin with one hand and then pushed the pills into his
mouth with the other. Jim went to the kitchen and came back with a cup of
water. Monica poured some into his mouth and watched it come drooling back out.
Terry tilted Bo’s head back and said, “Try again.” She poured some more and
this time Bo swallowed.

With nothing he could do for either
wounded person, Jim went and got the mop and the bucket and started cleaning up
the blood in the hallway.

Terry sat next to Monica, thinking. After a minute, he
gestured silently for Jim to join him over by the fireplace. Terry looked at
Trey and indicated with a jerk of his head that Trey should join them too. He
quietly suggested to the other men that they needed to remove Geraldine’s body.
It might be helpful for Bo to get his mind off of his dead mother. He also
didn’t want Elizabeth seeing the body lying there.

“Good idea,” Trey said. “I’ll help
you.”

“You guys move the body and I’ll
mop the floor.”

Terry looked at Jim without saying
anything.

“What? It needs to be done.”

“I don’t know,” Terry replied,
then
he and Trey went over to Geraldine. Terry whispered
something in Monica’s ear. She nodded and reached for the arm that Bo had
around his mother.

“Bo, I need to take your pulse. Can
I have your hand for a minute? That’s good. Just look at me and try to focus on
breathing.”

As she pretended to take his pulse,
not even sure where she was supposed to feel for an artery, the two men took
Geraldine by the hands and feet and quietly carried her away, looking like
macabre thieves, practically tip-toeing toward the kitchen with the body
swaying between them.

Jim started mopping and Bo finally
realized something was going on and turned his head away from Monica.

“Mother!” he cried out.

Jim stopped moving the mop.

“They just took her to another room
so I can clean this area. Don’t worry. She’ll be fine.”

Outside, Terry and Trey carried
Geraldine to Terry’s pickup. They carefully set her down in the bed of the
truck and Terry asked Trey to ride with the body while he drove them to get
shovels and to find a burial spot. A few minutes later, both men were digging
holes, making slow progress with the frozen earth.

“Ya think maybe we could just stash
her somewhere till springtime? This is impossible.”

Terry stopped his nearly futile
effort with the shovel to take a break and think about what Trey had just said.
He looked around, wondering if they could get away with that somehow. They’d
have to build a box to keep predators from eating away at her.

In the distance, something caught
his eye. Moving to his left to get a better view between the trees, he saw a
contrail heading straight up. He slowly turned his head,
then
followed with his body, making a complete circle. He spotted three more white
trails – all of them heading for the sky.

“Shit! I don’t know what we can do
with her, but right now we sure as hell can’t bury her. We need to get inside.
Help me get her back in the truck.”

They lifted the body and laid it
back in the bed of the truck. Terry threw a tarp over her and quickly jumped
into the cab. This time Trey rode in the cab. The rear tires spun in the dirt
as Terry took off.

“What’s wrong?” Trey looked around
but didn’t see anything that would explain the look of fear on Terry’s face.

“The shit just hit the fan.”

“I don’t – what do you mean?”

“Unless I’m mistaken, the war just
got started.
For real this time.”

Both men bounced up and hit their
heads on the ceiling of the truck as they raced over a dip in the service road.
Neither of them had put on their seatbelts.

“Sorry about that,” Terry muttered,
focusing on the road.

Trey was confused, but each time he
tried to formulate a question, he’d think of a different one. If Terry could
tell what was happening, he felt that maybe it should be obvious to him too.

Terry brought the truck to a stop
in front of the lodge.

“Come on!”

He jumped out of the truck and
sprinted for the door. It was locked.

“Open up! It’s me and Trey!”

Jim ran to the door. Terry sounded
panicked. It had to be Carl. That monster was still alive. He pulled his gun
out, unlocked the door, and yanked it open. He looked past the truck and around
the parking lot but saw no one.

“What’s going on? You look like you
just saw a violent asshole.”

“What I saw
was
several nukes heading for God knows where.”

“Oh shit. Are you sure?”

“Either that, or NASA is sending
rockets to the moon again.”

“Oh fuck,” Jim said. “So they were
right. Denver was just the beginning.”

Less than two hours later, a
sleeping Bo Francis joined the casualties of world war three. Terry, Jim, and
Trey placed his body in the truck bed beside his mother and secured the tarp.
It was the best they could do for now.

Two days later, water stopped
flowing from the faucets in the lodge. Terry considered the problem and came up
with a solution. He rationed water that he drained from the large water heater
while missiles arced across the globe making it unsafe to go outside. Denver
and Colorado Springs took several more hits which eventually covered the lodge
in more nuclear fallout.

This time there was no rain to wash
away the poisonous ash by the time they had used all of the water in the water
heater. As they began rationing water from the toilet tanks in the cabins, they
realized that they had no choice but to leave the shelter and relative security
of the lodge.

Wearing multiple garbage bags
secured around their shoes and lower legs, the men stood outside the lodge and
loaded the RV with supplies passed to them from the women inside.

After they had stripped the lodge
of all the food and everything they had gathered on their supply runs, Jim and
Trey removed the bags from their feet and got in the RV. Terry retrieved a
bathroom door that he had removed when they were making the food storage box
and laid it down to make a ramp, setting one end at the lodge doorway and the
other end on the back bumper of the RV.

No one spoke after everyone was
aboard, except for Liz who asked where they were going. No one had an answer
for her. They had no destination in mind, only objectives: water and shelter.
They had agreed that heading west on I-70 made the most sense; away from Denver
and toward Utah. Maybe it would be safe to stop in Grand Junction 150 miles
away.

They could follow the highway
alongside the Colorado River all the way there, stopping as needed for water,
and maybe even catching some fish occasionally, if the water hadn’t turned to
poison.

###

The End