What Survives of Us (Colorado Chapters Book 1) (18 page)

She had planned to rig a pack of sorts for him with the tent and the sleeping bag, using bungee cords to secure them on either side of his torso.  To her relief, he seemed agreeable to carrying it, standing patiently while she fussed with the cords.  Then she stood and shouldered her own pack, slinging her shotgun over her shoulder by the strap.  The handgun was in a mesh side-pocket of her backpack; she could get to it fairly easily, though it wouldn’t be a quick draw.

By the time she finished, Macy and Persephone were waiting by the slider, Macy carrying the umbrella and Persephone dancing her perky ready-ready-ready-to-go dance.  And just like that, they were out the door.

Ares slunk out between their feet, and Naomi watched him go, wondering as she always did if they would ever see him again.  She looked at Macy and forced a grin, in spite of her pounding heart and dry mouth.  “Wagons west!”

They slipped through the neighborhoods quickly and silently, walking single-file with the dogs flanking them, using whatever cover was available.  Naomi had warned Macy about the need for speed and silence on this part of the trip; they were in far more danger here in Manitou Springs than they would be when they were on the trails.  And in spite of the soft, rosy light of dawn and the lilt of birdsong, a subtle menace pervaded the morning.

Naomi had estimated they were just under a mile from the trailhead, and she didn’t want to stop until they got there.  She scanned their surroundings constantly, using all of her senses to
feel
their way along.  A few times, she was sure she felt eyes on them, and she hurried their pace until the feeling passed.  They were just over what she guessed was the half-way mark when Hades trotted in front of her and stopped dead.  He didn’t growl, but he wouldn’t move, and Naomi didn’t hesitate.

She hustled Macy and Persephone up between two houses, while Hades brought up the rear.  She hid Macy behind a shrub, then slid to the corner of one of the houses to look out.  Hades moved to stand beside her, and that was when Naomi heard it.  Faintly at first, then getting louder, the buzz of a small motor – the same one she’d heard a few days ago, she’d swear it.

She looked back at Macy, and put a finger to her lips.  Then she returned her attention to the street, rested her hand on Hades’ head, and allowed his perceptions to augment her own.

The buzzing was suddenly much louder, and the smell of death was overwhelming.  There were people dead in both the houses they were standing between, she was sure of it.  An involuntary shudder ripped down her spine, and she struggled against the urge to hurry Macy away.  Ironically, Hades’ instinct
to stay and hide overrode her mother’s instinct to distance her daughter from death.

The buzzing got even louder, and Naomi retreated back behind the shrub with Macy.  She positioned her body in front of her daughter, and Hades lay down in front of them both.  When the buzzing was nearly on top of them, Naomi looked down and shut her eyes, willing herself into invisible stillness.

She didn’t see the little dirt bike flash past, but Hades did.  She had a quick impression of noise, the stink of the bike, and a man riding it.  Whether he was young or old, she couldn’t begin to say, but the danger clinging to him was unmistakable.  They stayed where they were until Hades stood up and looked back at her.  She nodded, helped Macy to her feet, and they crept on their way.

It was so hard not to hurry, but Naomi forced them to maintain a slow, steady pace.  She was winded already and they hadn’t even left the city yet.   Macy’s energy seemed good, but she knew how quickly that could change.  They were nearly at the trailhead when a sudden rustling from the underbrush beside another house startled all of them.

A small dog charged at them, barking wildly.  A Brussels Griffon – Naomi automatically identified his breed.  His desperation preceded him like a punch – his people were dead, he was hungry and alone for the first time in his life, and his mind was nearly unhinged by terror and loneliness.  Naomi knelt down to shush him, heart pounding in response to both his fear and her own.  They could not afford this kind of commotion.

The tiny dog wiggled against her, licking and whining.  Hades was rumbling a low growl, and Persephone was rigid with disapproval, staring at the newcomer.  Macy knelt too, and stroked the small, quivering dog.

“Mom.  We have to take him with us.  Look at him – he’s so scared.”

“No.”  The word barked out of her, part pain, part instinct.  Naomi took a deep breath and softened her tone.  “Honey, no.  Feel his body – he’s older than he looks, feel how frail his bones are.  And…”  She hesitated, not sure how to tell Macy what she
sensed
without starting a conversation she wasn’t ready to have.  “He’s immature in temperament, too.  He’s been spoiled and pampered, and he’s not trained.  We can’t take him.  I’m sorry.”

“But Mama-”

“No.”  Naomi stared into Macy’s eyes, willing her to understand.  “You used hard truth on me.  You reminded me about my promise to Daddy, and about Piper meeting us at the cabin.  This is hard truth.  We can’t rely on him.  He’ll endanger us.”

Before Macy could reply, Hades’ head lifted, and his body stiffened.  Naomi lifted her head as well, and heard it:  The buzzing motor bike.  Coming closer.  Fast.

She scooped up the little dog and hurried them all behind the house he’d come from.  Sensing the increased level of excitement, he started wriggling and yipping, oblivious and eager to play.  Naomi cupped her hand over his muzzle and tried to reach out to him with her mind, tried to calm him, to convey the danger they were in, but her attempt just confused and excited him more.  His wriggling increased, and he started trying to nip at her quieting hand, his yips turning to sharp, agitated barks.

Sweat greased Naomi’s forehead and coated her from her underarms to her waist.  The buzzing motor bike was deafening – she couldn’t tell if she was experiencing it through Hades, or if it was that close – and there was no time, no time. 

She turned her back on Macy, closed her hands over the little dog’s skull and around his neck, and twisted with all the sudden violence she could.  A sudden yelp, a ripple of crunches, and his body jerked once.  She felt his life lift like smoke through her hands.

She kept his limp corpse resting across her knees.  Macy was crying silently behind her; she could feel her daughter’s anguish as clearly as she could hear her hitching breaths.  The buzzing motor bike was still close, but the danger seemed remote now, compared to what Naomi had just learned she could do.

She wanted to vomit, wanted to join Macy in tears, and would not permit herself either luxury.  Those reactions belonged to the old Naomi.  The soft-hearted Naomi, who had never touched another living creature in anger, not in her whole life.  From one heartbeat to the next, she had become someone she no longer recognized.

The buzzing drifted farther and farther away, and finally retreated out of earshot altogether, and still they sat there.  Naomi knew they needed to move, knew that the higher the sun climbed, the hotter the first part of the trail would be, but to move meant looking into Macy’s eyes.  What would she see there?  Disapproval?  Fear?  Hate?

Macy’s hand landed on her shoulder, soft and light as a bird.  When her little arms slid around Naomi’s neck, and her soft baby cheek, tacky with dried tears, pressed to her mother’s, Naomi heaved a breath that seemed to fill her body all the way to her toes.

“Honey, I…I couldn’t quiet him…I didn’t know what else…”  Naomi shut her eyes and heaved another enormous breath.  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Macy’s arms tightened for a moment, then she rose and slid around in front of her mother, lifting the little dog’s body into her own arms.  “Mama, I know.  And he’s okay.  He really is.  He’s with his people now.”

Naomi couldn’t change the subject or pretend to misunderstand.  Not anymore.  “Are you sure?”

Macy held her gaze steadily.  “Yes.  They waited for him.  And now they’ve all gone on together.”

“You could see them.  Like you see Daddy.”

“Yes.”

They regarded each other from this new place, in the bright light of day.  Then Naomi took a deep breath and plunged.  “I feel things.  Like danger, or the right thing to do.”  Another deep breath.  “And I can share senses with the animals.  I can smell and see and sense things through them.”

Macy’s face bloomed into a delighted smile.  “Seriously?  Mama, that is so cool!  Way better than seeing dead people!”

Her disgruntled expression made Naomi laugh, and the lift in her heart gave her the courage to take the next step on this awful journey.  She reached out and lifted the little dog’s corpse out of Macy’s arms, and laid him gently on the ground.  “I’m glad he’s okay.  I’m glad you could tell me that.  Now we need to go.”

It took two blocks for the wobble in her knees to steady, but by the time they finally reached the trailhead, she had refocused her attention on the next step in front of them, and the next.  She didn’t have time right now to wonder about this evolution of self, this woman who could kill with her bare hands to keep her daughter safe.  Later, when they were safe, she might figure out how this new truth fit into the compassion and tenderness she had always thought of as her core.

At the Barr Trailhead, a sign provided them with dire warning just in case they weren’t aware of what they were getting into.  Naomi turned her back on it, and they sat in the shade to eat a quick snack and drink some water before they started on
the trail.  It had taken them longer to get here than Naomi had planned; the sun was searing, though it couldn’t be more than 8:00 am.

In the parking lot, several abandoned vehicles stood, leaves and debris accumulated around their tires.  For the first time, it occurred to her that other people might have hiked out this way, for the same reasons they were.  What if they met them on the trail?  She felt another spike of anxiety, then pressed her lips together hard.

Without making a big deal out of it, she took the handgun from the backpack, checked the safety, and put it in the pocket of the sweatshirt she had tied around her waist.  Macy didn’t comment, but when Naomi looked up, she was watching her with eyes that were just a little too big. 

Half an hour ago, Macy had seemed otherworldly, wise, possessed of a mysterious knowledge that rendered her ageless.  Now, she was just a little girl who was tired and sweaty, and overwhelmed by the changes in her mother.

The remedy for that was a taste of practical, bossy Mama.  Naomi nudged Macy’s half-eaten granola bar towards her mouth.  “Come on, chop chop.  Eat that up so we can get going.”  She poured some water into her cupped hands for the dogs, adjusted Hade’s pack, and winced her way back into her own backpack.  She was pretty sure the shoulder straps had rubbed her raw already.

By the time her preparations were complete, Macy was ready to go.  Naomi gestured for her to take the lead – the better to keep watch for the signs that she needed to rest – and without looking back, they walked into the wilderness.

              Grace opened her eyes and found herself staring up at pipes and ductwork.  A tiny, grimy window set high in a cement wall struggled to let in light.  She blinked once, and before she had moved a single muscle other than her eyelids, her brain started outlining the situation and cataloging facts. 

A basement.  She didn’t recognize it.  The cement was crumbly, but the foundation wasn’t stone, so an older home but probably not historic.  Her nostrils flared; she could smell urine and feces, strong but not overwhelming, and under that, damp and mold.

The silence was absolute.  She couldn’t detect a single sound other than her own soft breathing.  She would need to move to learn more, and slowly, cautiously, she turned her head away from the window.

The simple movement sent pain spiking through her neck and shoulders and ripping down her back.  She shut her eyes for a moment, trying to breathe away the pain, but a sudden rustling and an unfamiliar voice popped her eyes wide again.

              “Oh my god, you’re finally awake.  I thought they killed you.”

             
A girl scooted out of the shadows towards her, and stopped a few feet away.  She appeared to be a few years older than Grace, though it was hard to tell for certain – she was filthy, and it looked like she had been beaten.  Bruises discolored both her cheeks, and one side of her mouth was swollen, giving her face a lopsided appearance.  Her blonde hair hung in matted hanks around her face, and dried blood caked one ear and the side of her neck.

             
The girl slid closer, then wrapped her skinny arms around her knees and squeezed.  “I’m Bri.  That’s short for Brianne – all my friends call me ‘Bri.’  I know we’re not friends, but I’ve been sort of watching over you for the last two days, so I feel like I know you…”  Bri shut her eyes and pressed her lips together for a moment.  She took a deep, shuddering breath, and when her eyes opened, they were shiny with tears.  “I’m talking too much.  I do that.  I really thought you were dead, but I was too afraid to check.  You haven’t moved in, like, hours and hours.”

Grace scanned the room again.  In a far corner, another girl was curled in the fetal position on a ragged comforter, knees drawn so close to her face, Grace couldn’t see her mouth.  Her eyes were open but blank, her face still, expressionless, serene.  Bri followed her gaze and grimaced.

“That’s Jen.  She’s…well, she’s not okay.  Not anymore.  Back when she was talking, she said they got her a few days before they got me.  I don’t know how long ago that was.  Maybe a month.  It’s easy to lose track of time.”

Grace let her eyes complete the circuit of the room, noting a bucket in the farthest corner – probably the source of the smell she’d detected earlier – and a door in the wall behind Bri.  She returned her gaze to Bri and tried to speak, but her throat felt like it had been glued together.  She cleared it, tried again, and managed to croak, “I’m Grace.”

Bri’s smile was dazzling white in the dim room.  “Grace.  I’m so glad to finally know your name.  Here, let me get you some water.”

She scooted back into the shadows and returned with a milk jug half-filled with dingy water.  “I know it looks gross, but it won’t make you sick.  At least it hasn’t made me sick yet.  I
don’t know where they get it – last I knew, nobody had running water.  I’ll help you sit up.”

She put her arm under Grace’s shoulders, the gentle contact so painful, Grace had to hold her breath against crying out.  When she was finally upright, she released the pent-up breath on a whoosh of air and panted for a moment, watching stars dart behind her closed eyelids.  Bri helped her tip the milk jug to her lips; the water tasted musty, but was so soothing against the tissues of her throat, she didn’t care.  When she was finished, she slowly and painfully pulled her legs into a crossed position and took stock.

Her jeans were filthy, and both knees were torn.  Through the holes, she could see that her knees were scraped and had scabbed over.  The front of her t-shirt was stiff with dried blood that had turned brown, and it looked like her arms and hands had been coated at one time, though much of it had flaked away.  Her upper arms and wrists were black and swollen with bruises, though her questing fingers told her that her face was uninjured except for a scabby scrape on the right side.  Worst of all, though, was her back; she felt like she’d been skinned from neck to heels.

             
Time to get some answers.  She refocused her attention on Bri.  “Who are ‘they?’  Who’s keeping us here?”

Bri blinked, clearly a little startled by Grace’s brusque tone.  “Uh, I’m not really sure.  I think they’re kind of a gang – some of them talk like they’re in the military.  Do you want something to eat?”

“In a minute.  Do you know where we are?  Are we somewhere in Colorado Springs?”

Bri blinked again, then smiled at her sadly.  “You think you can escape.  Jen thought the same thing.  And she ended up
like that.”  She nodded her head in the other girl’s direction.  “It’s better if you don’t fight them.  They don’t hurt you so bad.”

Okay.  Grace took a deep breath.  She needed to know, even though this line of questioning was likely to lead to a place she would not like.  “What happened to her?”

“She fought them.”  Bri frowned.  “She fought them, every time they came for her.  At first, anyway.  I tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen.  She said she’d rather die fighting than submit to them.  I told her she should just try to make them happy.  I figure if I make them…”  Her face spasmed.  “If I make them like me, maybe they’ll let me out…”

She fell silent for a few moments, completely absorbed in picking at a scab on her elbow, and Grace stared at her.  Was she really hearing what she thought she was hearing?

Bri sighed and looked back up.  “Then Jen got tired, and I think they hurt her.  Broke some ribs or something.  So she tried reasoning with them.  She was really smart.  She said she could help them, help them figure out how to survive.  They just laughed at her.  They don’t bother her anymore, now that she’s like this.  But they don’t feed her either.  I’ve been trying to get her to eat some of my food, but…”

The other girl’s evasiveness – not to mention her habit of leaving sentences unfinished – was starting to drive Grace nuts.  She needed hard facts, not euphemism.  “When you say she fought them, and when you say ‘they don’t bother her anymore,’ you mean they were raping her, but they’re not doing that now that she’s unresponsive.”

“What?”  Another series of blinks made Grace wonder if Bri wasn’t too far from joining the other girl – Jen? – in catatonia.  Either that, or she wasn’t the brightest of bulbs.  “Well…yeah.”

“They have been raping you, too.”  She paused and took a deep breath.  Then another.  Surprising, how hard it was to ask.  “And they raped me before they brought me here, didn’t they?”

Bri’s eyes slid away, and Grace could tell she was going to evade the question.  She felt a surge of impatience and tried to control it.  This was data she needed.  The last thing she remembered was riding into the outskirts of the city with Quinn.  After that, it was just flashes:  fire, guns popping, dirt in her mouth, the smell of sweat.

“Look.  Just tell me.”

“You don’t remember?”

“If I remembered,” Grace gritted out, “I wouldn’t be asking.”

“Oh.  Right.  Well.”  Bri’s eyes flitted to hers, touched briefly, then flitted away.  “Yeah.  They dumped you in here with your clothes, but you were, you know.  Naked.  I tried to clean you up – your back is all skinned up, I guess from the road – and  then I dressed you.”

“And you could tell they had raped me.”  It was easier to say this time around.

Bri nodded without looking at her.  “Yeah.  I…I cleaned you up.  I could tell.”

Grace didn’t ask her to elaborate.  It wasn’t that she was afraid to know – it was just that the details were irrelevant.  She was aware that her unemotional response wasn’t necessarily healthy, but she needed to function right now, and emotions would only hinder her.  She thought for a minute, then decided to try a different approach.  “How did you end up here?  What happened?”

Bri brightened and sat up straight.  Like most survivors of trauma, she wanted,
needed
, to tell her story.  “I was a freshman at UCCS – I lived in the dorms.  When the plague hit and they quarantined the city, I just stayed there ‘cause I didn’t have anywhere else to go – my mom and dad live in Grand Junction.”  Pain flickered across her face, and her voice faltered.  Then she took a deep breath and went on.  “I haven’t heard from them in a long time – my dad said they were going to come over and stay with my uncle in Denver, so they’d be ready to get me when they lifted the quarantine, but, well, you know.  I don’t know if they tried to come get me, or if…”

Bri looked away this time, throat working.  She looked up at the ceiling and blinked rapidly to dry the tears that had welled in her eyes, and went on.  “I left when we ran out of food – I was with a guy from my dorm, and we were going hous
e to house.  If everybody was-”  She hesitated over the word, “- dead, we’d stay.  Eat whatever food was left, then move on.  We were working our way towards Fort Carson.  Tyler – that’s the guy I was with – had heard there was a refugee camp there.  We never made it.”

Grace leaned forward intensely.  “Tyler.  What happened to him?”

Bri’s eyes dulled and lost focus.  She turned her profile to Grace, and for long moments, she was silent, staring at nothing.  She shuddered once, then turned back to Grace, eyes still lost to a scene Grace could not witness. 

“They broke into the house where we were staying in the middle of the night – we had a fire going in the fireplace, and I guess they saw the light or smelled the smoke or something.  One of them grabbed me.  A couple other guys grabbed Tyler, and said he had 10 seconds to decide – join or die.  Tyler tried to ask who they were, and before he even finished talking, one of the guys shot him, right in the head.”  Bri started rocking gently, arms clenched around her knees.  “His brains blew all over the wall.  They were laughing about it, and they took turns trying to
say what the pattern looked like while the others took turns…with me…”

Her voice trailed off, and she shuddered again.  For the first time, it occurred to Grace that she should pity this young woman.  She hesitated, then reached out and rested her hand on Bri’s forearm, squeezing to convey comfort, all the while aware that the gesture was calculated.  The place in Grace where feeling lived was stone cold, a total black-out.  But she needed Bri, needed her knowledge and possibly her cooperation.

“I’m sorry,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as stiff and insincere to Bri as she did to herself.  Bri swallowed repeatedly, fighting for control, then started sobbing, a soft, hiccupy sound.  She slid closer to Grace, and pressed into her side, burrowing for comfort like a child.  Grace put her arm around Bri’s shoulders, rocking and patting, while her mind raced and calculated.

Apparently, she’d landed in the worst-case scenario of every post-apocalyptic movie she’d ever seen.  They were being held by a group of military or wannabe-military men, being used for sex, discarded when they were no longer useful.  If Quinn had been taken with her, it was likely he’d been killed – Grace couldn’t imagine him capitulating without a fight.  That thought made her heart beat heavily, a deep, uncomfortable thumping in her chest, but otherwise caused her no pain.  She rubbed at her chest absently, and kept assembling the facts she had, working towards a big picture.

Fighting was out.  She wasn’t afraid to defend herself, but she wasn’t a fool.  She believed Bri was right – fighting would only make them hurt her more, and even a minor injury could be life-threatening under the circumstances.  Not worth the risk.

She could pretend to be like Jen, pretend the trauma of the experience had unhinged her mind, curl up in the fetal position and drool until they ignored her.  But that would require
Bri’s cooperation, and Grace wasn’t sure she could trust the other girl to maintain the deception.  And it wouldn’t get her out of this room.

Grace did not like the option that was emerging.

Bri’s sobs gradually subsided into ragged breathing, punctuated by the occasional wet sniff.  Finally, she sat up, pushing back a hank of hair.

“I’m sorry,” she said thickly, her stuffed-up nose making her little-girl voice sound even more pitiful.  “Crying doesn’t help, either, but sometimes…”

Grace twisted her face into an expression she hoped conveyed understanding.  “It’s okay.”  She counted to ten silently.  “Look, I need your help.  I need you to tell me what to do when they come for me.”

Blink.  “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what to do.  I’ve never had sex.”  Well, that wasn’t quite true now, was it?  Grace pressed on.  “I just want to know what to do, so they don’t hurt me.”

Bri didn’t need to know the rest of her plan.  The older girl might be right about the futility of fighting, but she was wrong about their chances of winning over their captors.  The facts were clear: they had used Jen up, and weren’t even attempting to keep her alive any longer.  They would use Bri up, and unless she escaped, they would use Grace until she died as well. 

Therefore, she had to get out of this room.  To do that, she had to submit.  Once out of this room, she could look for a way out, a hole, a weakness in their security.  She had to be patient, had to bide her time, had to wait for opportunity, had to endure.