The Omega Protocol Chronicles (Book 1): Exodus (12 page)

Audrey weighed his words for a moment before nodding.

Soon they were back out on the road. The girls were quiet and he glanced back to find Hannah asleep, obviously exhausted from the ordeal. Audrey sat beside her, staring out the window.

Jackson slowed the van when they came near where the barricade had been erected on the road. When they had closed up the town, they had parked a semi trailer across the road, the watch members standing on the roof for the height advantage. Now the trailer was half in the ditch, leaving one lane of the blacktop wide open. There were no signs of the watch or any other people but the skid marks on the pavement said some had been through not too long ago.

He didn’t exactly like the idea of following in everyone’s footsteps but he didn’t have much of a choice. He moved the van around the trailer and soon the town gave way to farmland on either side. When he hit the first crossroads, he turned right, the tension in his shoulders easing a bit now that they were off the main road.

“Where are we going?”

He glanced in the rear view mirror at Audrey. He’d been so focused on getting the hell out of that shit storm, the thought of where they’d go after hadn’t crossed his mind.  

“Hadn’t really thought about it,” he admitted, scratching the back of his neck as he considered what to do next. His original plan had been to hop on the bike and just drive away, no destination in mind. That had been fine when it was just him but now he was unofficial guardian to two orphan girls. The thought of being a guardian had an idea popping into his head.  

“You got any relations in these parts? Grandparents? Aunts and uncles?”

Audrey shook her head. “Mama didn’t talk to her family. They kicked her out when she had me. Grandpa and Grandma Cole died when I was little. We have an aunt but she lives in California.”

“You know where in California?”

Audrey shrugged her shoulders. “Just California. She doesn’t really talk to dad too much.”

Well that shit all over his idea. He wasn’t going to be able to drop these girls off with family.

“Your dad mentioned an evacuation centre in Hayden. Suppose that’s as good a place as any.”

He hadn’t wanted to go there but with the two girls in tow, he didn’t have a choice now. He’d made a promise to look after them and he intended to keep it. The evacuation centre would be the safest place for them.

“My dad told me that the world had changed and I was going to have to grow up. He said that a lot of bad stuff was going to happen and I had to be ready for it.”

“He was right. The world ain’t like it used to be.”

“But he didn’t tell me the bad stuff was going to be him dying.” She spoke with such bitterness a shiver went down Jackson’s spine.

“I expect he didn’t know it would come to that.”

“It’s not fair, you know,” she said, going back to staring out the window as she crossed her arms over her chest. “That guy in the truck got away after killing my dad. It should have been him that died.”

“How old are you now, Audrey?” he asked.

“I’ll be thirteen in two months,” she replied.

“That’s old enough to know the truth. Life ain’t fair. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. That’s the nature of the universe and ya gotta get used to it. Ya lost your parents and that’s awful but ya still got your sister. That means something.”

She looked at her sleeping sister, the corner of her mouth twitching up in a half smile.  

“Yer her big sister and ya gotta look out for her. That’s why your dad told ya that ya had to grow up. Ya gotta be strong for her, show her how to be strong too.”

“I know,” she whispered, her voice catching and he saw tears in her eyes. “My dad said the same thing when we started packing today.”

He felt bolstered to know he’d echoed Ian’s words. He’d been winging it there and it felt good to know he’d done something right. He watched in the mirror as Audrey reached out to take Hannah’s hand in her own and she leaned back, closing her eyes with the ghost of a smile on her face.

He’d saved the girls from death at the hands of cannibals and talked them back from a mental breakdown. Now he just had to focus on getting them to the evacuation centre safe and sound and he’d have the hat trick.

Subject File # 750

Administrator: Tell me about your childhood.

Subject: Some parts were unconventional but most people would say it was perfect.

Administrator: Why is that?

Subject: I grew up knowing I was loved unconditionally. You can’t really ask for more.

“Veronica, be careful at the window.”

“I know, Dad.” Veronica Alpert sighed, keeping her head turned to the window so her father wouldn’t see her roll her eyes. Thirty two years old but she still knew how to roll her eyes like a teenager when her father was being overprotective. “I was just checking the street.”

“Anything?”

“Zero movement. Looks like it’s going to be another quiet night.”

“Let’s hope so.”

She sat back from the window to watch her father shoulder his rifle and double check the wooden slats were still securely nailed into the window pane. They had barely finished declaring a national emergency on the news before her father had started boarding up the windows. She had secretly thought he was overreacting but, two weeks into this thing and the world outside getting worse with every passing minute, she was ready to admit he’d been right.

This trip back to the family home had all started out so innocently. It had been her little sister’s high school graduation, the last of the Alpert children to do so. Claudia had been their parents’ miracle baby, coming along years after they thought they couldn’t have anymore children. It had been strange at first for Veronica and her brother Quinton, both of them teenagers at the time, but they had instantly fallen in love with their baby sister.

So it hadn’t mattered that Veronica had lessons to prepare for the summer school classes she would be teaching or that Quinton had to perform scheduling miracles to beg off a couple days from the surgical rotation at the hospital. They were going to be there to watch her walk across that stage and get her diploma.

It had been after the ceremony that news of this mystery illness being officially declared a pandemic by the CDC. Their father had rushed them home, begging off the various invitations to parties after the ceremony.  

Since Veronica could remember, her father had been obsessed with the fall of civilization. He called it being a survivalist. The rest of the world called it being paranoid.

But he had managed to make a decent living as a hunting guide, putting to practical use all the skills he’d learned in preparation for doomsday. He had also passed those skills on to his children. Her memories of her childhood were of being in the woods, hunting and tracking, learning how to live off the land.

So when the news stopped broadcasting and the power grid went down, they were prepared. They had enough food and water in the house to last them several months and the wherewithal to survive beyond that.  

“You know, Dad,” she said and he turned his attention from the window to her. “I don’t think I’ve thanked you for getting us ready for this. I know we teased you over the years, even fought with you about it, especially when we were teenagers…but now that it’s real, I’m grateful.”

“To be honest with you, honey, there were times when I thought I was a bit crazy too,” he said with a smile, rubbing his hand over his bald head. He had once had a thick mane of beautiful ginger hair like all his children but time had taken most of it, leaving him with only a smattering of now grey hair.

“But it’s better to be safe than sorry,” he continued. “I wanted you kids to be ready but I also prayed that you would never have to use anything you learned. I guess not all prayers get answered.”

“Mine did. I prayed that if it ever happened, we’d be together when it went down,” she confessed. “And here we are, by pure chance, all of us under the same roof at the end of the world. If me or Quinton had been in the city instead of here, I don’t know if we’d still be okay.”

“We shouldn’t talk about the what ifs. They don’t matter, all that matters is what did happen. We’re here, together, with the people we love the most.”

He patted a hand on her shoulder, squeezing affectionately and she smiled up at him. “I do love you, Dad.”

“I love you too, sweetheart.” He took another glance out the window before he was satisfied that things were still quiet out there. “Come on, your mother will have dinner ready by now.”

He groaned. “Do we really have to all sit around the dining room table while we eat MREs?”

“You know the rule. All Alperts under the roof have to eat at the table,” he replied, leading the way downstairs to the dining room.

That rule had been enforced since she could remember. Her mother believed that sharing a meal brought them closer together as a family.

Candles were scattered around the room, casting a warm glow over the walls and shadows danced on the ceiling. Quinton and Claudia were already at the table and Veronica slid into the chair across from them while their father took the seat at the head of the table. Five MREs were on the table as well as the crystal stemware that was usually locked up in the china cabinet.

“We celebrating something?” Veronica said, twirling the stem of the glass between her fingers.

Claudia shrugged. “Mom asked me to put it out, she didn’t say why.”

“I just thought it would be nice. Give us some cheer for tonight.” Mom walked through the door from the kitchen, carrying pitchers of water that she handed to Dad before taking a seat at the end of the table.

They set about passing around the water, filling their glasses and the MREs, the food warming in the plastic bags. The stuff wasn’t so bad, at least it was warm, but she’d still give her left arm for a steak.

“So how was everyone’s day?” Mom asked.

“Gee, Mom, it was great,” Quinton replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I spent the morning upstairs and then, just to try something different, I went downstairs for the afternoon. It was crazy.”

“Don’t get lippy with me just because you’re going a little stir crazy,” she said, wagging a finger at her son. “When I was pregnant with you I was put on three months straight bed rest. Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you owe me for that, Quinton James Alpert.”

Claudia giggled. “You just got middle named. You’re in big trouble.”

“Ooh, ground him, Mom, ground him,” Veronica chanted and Quinton flipped her the middle finger. “Mom, you see what he did? He should have to go to bed without dessert.”

Quinton rolled his eyes. “Oh no, what will I do if I don’t get canned peaches?”

“If he doesn’t want his share, I’ll take it,” Claudia said and Quinton frowned.

“Fat chance, they’re mine.”

Claudia huffed and looked to their mother. “He can’t do that. He just said he didn’t want them.”

“I didn’t say that, idiot, what I said was--”

“Charles.” Their mother looked pleadingly towards their father.

“Kids, you’re all over the age of eighteen and if you keep this up, I will exercise my right to boot all of you out of my house,” he said without looking up from his meal.

“Fine,” Quinton replied and the girls echoed him before going back to their meals.

“I don’t know why but every time you kids get together, I swear, you regress to the behaviour of pre-teens again,” Mom said, a small smile on her lips.

“If we were acting like our pre-teen selves, Veronica would have yelled she hated us all and run up to sulk in her room while she listened to grunge music,” Quinton said with a smirk and Veronica glared at him.

She turned that glare on her mother when she had the audacity to laugh. “Oh honey, I’m sorry but you really were a pill when you went through puberty. You were such a drama queen.”

Veronica made a sound of indignation. “I was not! I was suffering from legitimate teenage angst.”

Everyone shared a look before bursting out laughing, Veronica included. It felt good to laugh. If it hadn’t been for the boarded up windows and the lukewarm food, she could pretend that this was one of the many regular family dinners they had shared at this table.

“Veronica, you and Quinton can take the first watch shift tonight,” Dad said. Well, so much for pretending. “With the Singhs having left today, we’re the only ones still on the block so we need to be alert.”

When the broadcasts had gone down, many of the townsfolk had left, heading towards the evacuation centres, no longer content to wait for help to arrive as they had been told. There were some though who had chosen to stay behind but as the days passed, they began to leave one by one. The Singhs had been the last family left on the block and that morning had told them that they were going to Maryland where they had extended family.

They had wished them well but Veronica knew that they all had their doubts about how safe they would be out there. Even without the threat of the infected, it was dangerous out there. No one was in control and the people were left to take care of themselves. That kind of situation could lead to good people doing bad things in order to protect themselves.