The Complete Lee West Post-Apocalyptic Box Set, page 40
part #1 of The Complete Lee West Post-Apocalyptic Box Set Series
“Lily! Lily! It’s Mommy!”
Mitch ran to her and clasped his strong hand over her sweaty face. “SHHH! Stop yelling!” he said in a loud whisper.
She had never seen him like this. For just a moment she wondered if he would slap her. She slowly nodded her head, indicating she wouldn’t scream again. Although she really wasn’t confident she could contain herself. He removed his hand and hugged her. She put her trembling hands on his back and began to sob uncontrollably.
“Where is my baby! Where is she, Mitch?”
Her body shook and trembled in his arms. He had only soft murmurs to soothe her. She knew he only appeared strong for her benefit. He loved their daughter as much as she did.
“Separate yourselves immediately and place your hands on your heads,” ordered an unseen voice.
“What? Who is that?” she said.
“Just do it,” repeated the voice. “Hands on your heads. Move apart.”
Mitch moved slowly away from her. She placed her hands on her greasy, sweaty head. Standing in the road, separate from Mitch, with her hands on her head, made her feel very vulnerable.
“State your name and purpose for being here,” shouted the voice.
“Mitch and Kim Stark. We’re here for our daughter, Lily,” said Mitch hesitantly.
The trees and underbrush rustled in several places near the fence. Two armed men came out of the trees, lowering their shotguns as they moved toward the fence.
“You can put your hands down. I’ll let you in. I’m Officer Craig Grey of the Evansville Police Department. This is Officer Jay Fischer, also from Evansville PD.”
“Is she here? Is Lily here? What is happening? Why are the police here?” demanded Kim.
“I don’t know if your daughter is here, ma’am. Let’s get you inside and we can sort this out.”
The officer unlocked the fence and pushed it aside with a loud metallic clang. The sound of metal on metal was so foreign to her.
“I’ll take you back to the camp. This way, please. You can call me Jay.”
“Thanks. You’ll have to excuse us. We’ve been on the road for a long time trying to get here. We’re completely exhausted.”
“We all are, sir. It’s been a tough time for everyone. I completely understand.”
Kim thought they walked for a long time to get inside the camp. The drive hadn’t seemed nearly this long when they came to drop off Lily. Everything looked small and quaint. Now all she could see were trees, loneliness and despair.
Through the trees she could view glimpses of Lake Sparrow. She knew they were close. As they approached, the sounds and smells of the camp began to welcome her. People hung out in small groups, chatting and laughing. Someone was cooking in the lodge. There were others by the lake fishing. Everything seemed so normal.
Kids played on the floating raft, taking turns jumping off the side into the pristine lake water. Other kids sat on the small beach, making forts in the sand. Her eyes darted from one child to the next, feverishly searching for Lily.
“Do you see her?” she said, grabbing Mitch.
“No. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t here. We need to keep looking.”
Kim stood stock-still. Scanning the kids. A creeping sense of dread started to overcome her. She knew it was a long shot that Lily was still at the camp. What were the chances of her being here after all this time?
A flitter of something bright pink caught her eye. On the lodge’s large wooden deck, she saw the pink Hello Kitty towel she had bought for Lily. The towel was draped over the railing, drying in the sun. On the picnic table next to the towel sat Lily quietly drawing.
“Lily!” shouted Kim as she ran toward her daughter. “Lily! I’m here!”
Lily’s head jerked up at the sound of her mother’s voice. She quickly scrambled her little body away from the table and toward the steps.
“Mommy! Mommy!” shouted Lily.
Kim ran across the camp and up the wide wooden stairs of the deck. She grabbed Lily’s tiny shoulders and pulled her into a strong embrace. Both mother and child sobbed with relief. They fell to the ground holding each other in a tight embrace. Mitch joined them. He cried and laughed with them. No words could describe Kim’s relief and joy at seeing her child. They were a family again. All things were possible now.
“I love you. I love you. I’m so sorry for leaving you, baby, I’m so sorry,” she whispered and cried over and over again.
The family stayed together in a small huddle for a very long time, each unwilling to break the magic between them.
Chapter Five
Jane sat next to Sam at a table in the lodge. It had been several hours since the family was reunited. Jane understood the extraordinary stress they must have felt while looking for their little girl. Seeing the family reunited brought up a lot of emotions for her. She felt both stressed and relieved as she looked across the table at them. Doris brought another plate of fresh cucumbers and a fresh pitcher of water.
“Thanks, Doris. I don’t know what we’d do without you,” said Sam.
“It’s my pleasure, sweetie. You know I love nothing more than feeding everyone,” she said, smiling. “You two keep eating. Looks like you haven’t in weeks.”
“Feels that way too. But we don’t want to infringe on your hospitality,” said Mitch.
The couple shared an uncomfortable look. Jane had a feeling they were planning to leave the camp as soon as possible. Looking them over, she knew walking out would be a death sentence for them and their daughter. The couple didn’t seem to be the hardy survival type that could last in their current situation. Glancing at Sam, she knew he shared her concerns.
“Doris has been helping the police from Porter, Grant and Evansville since the lights went out. She has an amazing farm just south of here. Originally the police from Porter used Doris’s farm as their headquarters. Now that the police have pushed back into Porter, there’s just a skeleton crew left at Doris’s house,” said Sam.
“So you’re planning to move back home?” asked Mitch.
“Ummm.” Doris hesitated, unsure.
“I can answer that,” said Chief Carlisle.
The chief walked across the gleaming hardwood floors to the group. He smiled and extended a hand to Mitch Stark. “Chief Carlisle of the Evansville Police Department.”
“Mitch and Kim Stark. I think you know our daughter, Lily.”
“Of course. Lily has been a great asset to all of us. Maybe she could help Ms. Doris in the kitchen?”
“I believe I could use an extra set of hands getting things ready for later. Come on, little one,” said Doris, grabbing Lily’s hand.
Kim stood up, about to protest.
“It’s okay. They’ll be just inside the kitchen. You can watch her through there,” said Jane, pointing to the open shutter.
“Okay. After everything we went through, the thought of her being out of my sight kind of freaked me out,” said Kim.
“I can well imagine,” said the chief, taking a seat. “How far away were you when the lights went out?”
“We were at a resort in Lester, about twenty miles east of here. We had no idea what happened. The resort just stopped working. Everything went dark. The staff told everyone they were working on it and things would be restored. At first, they brought out the board games and alcohol. They acted as though nothing was really wrong. It seemed as though the electrical issues were merely within the resort, not widespread. Then we realized our cell phones didn’t work,” said Mitch.
“But still, we figured maybe we just needed a charge. We sort of convinced ourselves that we somehow drained both phones. Everything we saw and experienced was woven into the narrative created by the hotel staff. We couldn’t imagine how bad things had become.”
“Then the resort staff started disappearing. Little by little the place started emptying out,” said Mitch.
“Once that happened, we got up from our poolside lawn chairs and started asking questions, which nobody could answer. Then we started thinking about getting back to Lily.”
Sam squeezed Jane’s hand under the table. She knew they were thinking the same thing. There was a major catastrophic loss of power and this couple had still been sitting by the pool, unaware of their surroundings. Astonishing.
“Of course, our car was dead. So we had to walk here,” said Mitch with a tinge of annoyance.
“Which way did you go?” asked Sam.
“Through Grant. The place was a war zone. There were a lot of very mean-looking people looting, shooting off guns, and killing people in the street. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” said Mitch flatly.
“Grant was one of the hardest-hit areas,” said Chief Carlisle.
“What do you mean hardest-hit areas? What’s happening? When will the power be restored? This is crazy,” said Kim.
The chief leaned back in his chair and sighed. None of the information he could share would give the couple the solace they sought. Jane could see the strain the situation had taken on the chief. He had provided steady leadership throughout the crisis. More importantly, he provided a sense of security. She knew his swift actions saved many lives. Getting through this mess intact relied heavily on him.
“When the power went down, a privately run prison outside Grant lost power along with the rest of us. Their electronically controlled environment ceased to function once the gasoline-run generators went dry. The prison disgorged all of its inmates into the surrounding areas, including Grant,” said the chief.
“Many of the convicts stayed within their prison gangs; then the gangs joined forces, calling themselves the ‘New Order,’” said Jane.
“From what we can tell, one of the primary objectives of the New Order was to systematically hunt down and kill all police, thereby leaving them open to take over whole towns.”
“Thanks to the chief, Evansville PD quickly mobilized and moved up here, taking over the camp,” said Jane.
“What happened to the people that were here? The kids?” asked Kim.
“Many of the employees went their own way, back to their families. Slowly, the kids have been picked up by weary parents, like yourselves,” said the chief.
“That explains what we saw in Grant. The place was insane. Like something we would see from another country. I never thought I would be living through such things while in the U.S.,” said Mitch.
Jane knew most people thought they were completely safe in the U.S. However, sometimes there was merely a thin veneer of safety. She and Sam believed that underneath the surface lurked a more sinister side to society. Sam had taken their beliefs to a different level by preparing for worst-case scenarios. He’d actively stockpiled survival supplies in case this sort of disaster occurred.
“We need to get home. If Porter is safe, we should be fine, right, Mitch?” asked Kim.
“Where’s home for you?” asked Sam.
“We live in the south side of Bixby. We’d head due south, through Porter,” said Mitch.
“I cannot guarantee you’ll be safe traveling that distance. Porter is secure, but we really don’t know the full extent of the New Order’s resources. Nor do we know where they’re concentrated. You could be walking into another ‘war zone,’ as you put it,” said the chief.
“Can you tell how the citizens of Grant are holding up?” asked Jane.
“We have no idea. People were in hiding. The only movement on the streets was the gangs or the few unlucky people that they were harassing,” said Mitch.
“How did you manage to get here? That’s a lot of ground to cover on your own,” asked Sam.
Jane could sense that Sam didn’t entirely trust the couple. Something seemed off about their story and reactions to what the chief had told them. How did they manage to safely get to the camp through heavily infested New Order territory, especially given the couple’s lack of apparent skills?
Mitch and Kim shared an uncomfortable look.
“It’s okay. Let’s tell them the whole thing. They deserve to know. It’ll be fine,” said Mitch, nodding at his wife.
Kim took a deep breath and started. “My brother, Ralph, was an inmate in PrisCorp. He was incarcerated several years ago after robbing a convenience store to fuel his drug habit. Ralph has been the black sheep in the family for a very long time. His troubles started when he was in high school. He dropped out in order to ‘make it,’ as he put it. Unfortunately, his plan didn’t go any deeper than joining a gang. It wasn’t the get-rich-quick scheme he was expecting, as you all know.”
“Never is,” said the chief. “Even if it works out for a little while.”
“Exactly,” said Kim. “At first, he got into trouble for stealing cars and street selling dime bags of heroine. By the time he was fully engulfed in the gang, we rarely saw him. He shaved his head, got a bunch of tattoos you could see up his neck—and disappeared into the fray. I only know of his incarceration because his defense attorney asked me to write a character reference on his behalf. The attorney thought a letter in support of him from his sister would help sway the judge to be lenient. It didn’t work. Ralph got ten years.”
“We hadn’t heard a word about Ralph—until we reached Grant,” said Mitch.
“Mitch and I were slowly winding through the town when we were grabbed by this New Order gang, or whatever they are. Bunch of escaped prisoners from PrisCorp. Honestly, at the time we were so scared that neither of us put two and two together. That Ralph was probably out there, too,” she said, starting to choke up.
“We had nothing on us for them to steal, so they entertained themselves by beating me for several minutes. I could tell they had other plans for Kim.”
The bruising on Mitch’s face looked older than his story indicated. Something still wasn’t adding up.
“Ralph appeared out of nowhere and wandered over to the group that held Kim, apparently intending to join in. However, when he realized it was his sister, he stopped the men,” added Mitch.
“What a hero,” muttered Jane.
“Ralph convinced them to free me—sort of an ‘honor among thieves’ thing. Freeing Mitch turned out to be a different story. Ralph tried, but the more he pushed, the more likely it seemed they would turn on him.”
“Then Kim had a stroke of genius. She traded my services for our safety,” said Mitch.
“She what?” said Sam.
“Mitch is a locksmith. He’s probably one of the best in the region. He can get into anything. I promised them that he would get them through any locked door, safe or other locked area—if they agreed to let us go free when he finished.”
“And you took their word for it?” said the chief. “From my point of view, there is no honor among thieves.”
“What choice did we have?” said Kim. “We were their prisoners. They jailed us in a small room, only taking Mitch out to open locks. Every time he left, I didn’t think he would return.”
“What did they have you open?” said the chief.
“Using tools I assembled from various hardware stores—I opened up the entire city for them.”
“What could they have possibly wanted that was not accessible to them already? It seems as though they had kicked, shattered and burned their way through all the towns. What was left to open?” asked Jane.
“The Grant police station’s armory.”
“Oh. Shit,” said Sam.
“My sentiments exactly,” said the chief.
Jane shook her head. They had seriously hoped that the New Order couldn’t access the weapons in that armory. The few surviving police officers from Grant confirmed that the well-stocked armory had been intact when they fled. Facing overwhelming odds and still reeling from the rapid loss of most of the police force, they had locked the armory door and fought their way out of the carnage.
“Grant’s armory must’ve been huge given the number of officers on the force,” said Jane.
“Grant had one of the largest and most well-stocked armories in the region. They’re the anchor armory for the county and tri-city SWAT teams. We were hoping to grab the stash in Grant for use in our fight against the New Order,” said the chief.
“That’s not good,” said Sam. “Not good at all.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Mitch gravely.
“It’s not your fault. You needed to do what you could to survive. We get that. This just changes things for everyone,” said the chief.
“It really does. Maybe it moves up our timeline?” offered Jane.
“I’m surprised they let you go once the armory was opened,” said Sam.
“Ralph had a lot to do with that. He watched over us, bringing us extra food and water. I could also hear him talking to the guys, suggesting that we would help them by spreading the word. Whatever that meant.”
“You’re spreading the word alright,” said Sam sarcastically.
Jane bumped him under the table, trying to stop him from further comments. The couple was not their enemy despite what they had done.
“Did you tell Ralph where you were going?” asked Jane.
“What do you mean?” asked Kim.
“Does Ralph know about the camp? The location of the camp?” asked the chief with a strained voice.
“Yes. I think the thought of us saving his niece was what kept him pushing for our safety. He knows exactly where the camp is,” said Mitch.
“This keeps getting better,” said Sam.
Jane refrained from kicking him again. They had a big problem on their hands.
“You’re welcome to stay with us. We’re as safe as we can be here at camp. If you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare for a meeting,” said the chief, abruptly getting up from the table. “See you in thirty minutes, Jane.”
“Yes, sir.”
The chief looked visibly shaken by the thought of the New Order having access to the Grant armory—and knowing precisely where the camp was located. It was only a matter of time before the gang expanded into the surrounding areas. Lack of supplies would push them to roam, like a swarm of locusts in search of their next meal. Rage toward Mitch and Kim welled inside her. She knew she needed to control her thoughts, but was finding it increasingly difficult. Their mere presence meant nobody was safe here, even though the couple had done nothing to purposefully endanger anyone.
