Children of the After: The Complete Series: A Young Adult Postapocalyptic Action and Adventure series (25 page)

Pushing with all her might, Tammy watched as their newfound accomplice noted the light as well and turning his gaze he must have become frightened, for he pulled his shoulder from the cart and ran, without a word, out through the hole they had created in the wall. Tammy watched him go into the fire-lit darkness beyond, but could not relent in her efforts to move the cart as it still rolled forward, though slowing steadily.

That was it. It stopped moving as the lights grew nearer and nearer. She and Jack shoved again but to no avail. Eyeing the gap, she doubted the truck would fit. If it did it would be tight.

Turning to Jack she found his eyes wide, and without time to turn and see why, he grabbed her by the shoulders and leapt, dragging her with him.

* * * * *

Sam couldn’t see a thing between the bouncing of the truck and Will’s head directly in front of her face. From time to time she caught a glimpse, but it was like seeing a room filled with people at a party where the only light was a strobe light. An image presented itself and was gone, to be replaced by another altered image seconds later. Her life was in the hands of a seven year old who couldn’t make it through a single level of his favorite racing game without visiting a sidewalk at least once. All there was to do was hold on.

Without seeing what was ahead, she felt Will brace himself in her lap and in turn braced herself as well, causing her foot to slam the accelerator to the floor.

“Arggggggggggh!” Will yelled in increasing volume.

Wham! Sam was jerked forward, smashing into Will who was crushed between her and the steering wheel for an instant as his yell was silenced. In that instant the horn sounded as the truck bounced several times, rocking them every which way but upright. Will laughed as if he had just performed a trick or told a joke. Sam took her foot off the gas and pressed both the left pedals as the truck came to a screeching stop.

“Awesome,” Will shouted, sliding off Sam’s lap and pulling the shifter lever aside. “You can let go of the pedal now, it won’t go anywhere.”

Sam was dumbfounded. Looking around, she realized they had made it through the wall, and now sat between it and the fires that burned around the resistance’s camp. The boy was crazy. Just like his big brother. Both of them completely nuts, and yet it had worked.

She screamed in surprise as her door was wrenched open suddenly, and Jack smiled down at her with an odd expression on his face.

“Company’s coming, mind scooting over?”

Just then the opposite door opened and Tammy plopped down in the passenger side of the long bench seat. Sam noted as Will climbed into Tammy’s lap, giving her a brief hug as she scooted towards the middle portion of the seat. Within a second Jack was in the truck and guiding them down the road away from the resistance’s camp. They were free. All four of them. Everything would be OK. It had to be.

* * * * *

Jack drove until he saw the first intersection heading west. If there were more people, they wouldn’t gather near the big cities. He realized that now. No. Instead they would have sought out areas that weren’t as badly affected by the initial attack and lingering radiation. If they were all suffering symptoms of radiation poisoning, there was no telling if they would survive or for how long. Perhaps some of them would and others wouldn’t. If that was the case, he needed to get them to some place safe where there were people who could care for Will if he and Sam didn’t make it, but wouldn’t want to make a science experiment out of Tammy either. There were just as many questions now as there were before, especially for Tammy, but there wasn’t time to ask them.

On through the night he drove them east, hearing all about Will’s driving of the truck from both Sam and Will. He was amazed at just how differently the two stories were told. One was an exciting ride to save the day, and the other a terrifying feat that they barely survived. He couldn’t help but wonder if this whole invasion was much the same. Perhaps there was a side to the story they didn’t know yet.

It was near three hours later that Jack decided to stop and let them all stretch their legs. It had been a long time since any of them had just sat still for hours on end, and all of them found it uncomfortable. Jack was also finding it increasingly difficult to focus his eyes on the road with the growing headache behind his eyes. Digging though his pack he located the aspirin and after a second’s discussion, gave tablets to everyone. They all were in pain.

Cracking open a few new jars of food, Jack looked at their dwindling stock of supplies. They had enough for a few days, even with Tammy along. Together they ate an entire jar of pickled eggs, which had Will laughing before they even got back in the truck, and half a jar of green beans. It wasn’t much but would hold all of them over.

Climbing back into the truck, he realized that the aspirin must be taking effect as all of them smiled and moved more animatedly. Perhaps it was their newly found freedom or full bellies that changed their moods. Whatever the case was, he was glad for it.

Taking his spot behind the steering wheel, Jack reached up and adjusted the rearview mirror as his companions got themselves adjusted. There, in the black distance behind them, a pair of headlights broke over the horizon. Looking down to the gas gauge, he knew they wouldn’t make it far on a quarter tank. It seemed the resistance wouldn’t let them go so easy.

-End

The engine sputtered as Jack yanked the steering wheel to the right. With a chug, Ole Bessy hesitantly complied, turning, and leaning to the side as all the inhabitants of the cab slid across the vinyl seat. With all four tires screeching, Jack steered them around what was once a family sedan and between a pair of dilapidated and burned pickups. Behind them, no telling how far, the headlights remained in the rearview mirror. Jack knew with a certainty that they were being followed. Pursued again, as they seemed to be more often than not, it was up to him to keep all of them safe.

Nervously looking away from the road, now littered with abandoned and ruined vehicles, Jack stole a look at the gas gauge again. It had been only seconds since he last looked, but still he couldn’t help himself. With under a quarter of a tank it seemed their options were running out. Fortunately, at least for now, the gas wasn’t. He could only see one thing to do. Keep running. Keep going. Drive as far as the old pickup would take them, and continue on foot. All they had to do was stay ahead of whoever was chasing them and find a place to hide. Run and hide. Jack couldn’t help but wonder if this was to be the rest of their lives. There had to be more left to it than this. There had to be. If not, then what was the point? Jack gritted his teeth and steered between two entirely too close together vehicles for his comfort and winced as the passenger mirror was torn away followed by a screech and sparks in the rearview. There had to be more. He just had to keep them all safe until they found it. He had to keep his promise to Dad.

Removing one hand from the steering wheel his knuckles faded from bright white as the circulation was restored. Ahead at least for a small stretch of road, there appeared to be nothing to hinder them. Reaching up with his now free hand, Jack rubbed at his temples. He could feel his every heartbeat in his head. Right behind the eyes a sharp stabbing pain persisted. Radiation poisoning, is what the scientist had called it. It was causing his headaches. Their headaches. All of them were having them. All of them were dying, even little Will. Jack knew they needed to find medicine, but also knew it was likely that the only places to find it were with people, and so far that had not worked out so well.

Silently Jack wished he had paid more attention in history. He remembered a little about the A Bomb and Hiroshima. He knew radiation could weaken the immune system. He knew it led to people getting sick and losing their hair, but neither he nor his siblings had been sick or were losing hair. Maybe it wasn’t too bad yet. He remembered talking about mutations, and babies being born with deformities and stuff, but none of that applied here. The doc had told them that their DNA was degrading, whatever that meant. He supposed it meant that the very cells of his body were falling apart, but the only sign that anything was wrong was the stabbing pain in his brain. It was constant, and though aspirin seemed to dull it, it was never really gone. Lowering his hand he took the wheel again to switch hands and massage the other temple. It was an act of futility, but he tried nonetheless. He just wanted the pain to go away.

Looking out ahead of the truck, Jack strained his eyes through the yellow light produced by the antiquated headlights to see as far ahead as he was able. Between exhaustion, hunger, and the pounding in his head, the fringes of his vision seemed blurred. The harder he looked the more his head hurt, and seeing nothing but flat, straight road ahead, he didn’t hesitate to push down on the gas pedal as Ole Bessy coughed and sputtered, slowly gaining speed. Glancing up, as he couldn’t help but do every few seconds, Jack noted the headlights in the distance behind them once again. Blinking twice, he tried to clear his vision. Were the headlights closer? He shook his head and looked again.

“C’mon, Bessy,” Jack whispered to himself.

The headlights behind them were gaining. It wouldn’t be long before they caught up. They needed to find a better place to run and hide, rather than a flat straight road. There was no chance of getting away here. Jack began scanning the road ahead for signs of an escape. There had to be one.

* * * * *

Sam bounced violently in the seat once again as Jack plunged the truck through a series of potholes, swerving this way and that to miss the largest of the craters in the road. From time to time she would slide to one side or the other, crashing bodily into either Tammy or Jack, unable to hold herself in place with Will on her lap. Though she did her best to avoid the shifting lever and anything else that could thwart Jack’s driving, she found it hard to focus as her mind kept wandering. With a dull pain between her eyes, Samantha couldn’t help but smirk at the fact that they were basically right back where they were just a few days before. Sure, they were in a truck now, and sure the circumstances and scenery had changed slightly, but more or less it was the same. Here they were again, just her, Jack, Will, and Tammy, and they were running from some unknown pursuer, bent on catching them and dragging them to who knew what end. She couldn’t help but believe that if they had gotten away each time before, they would do the same again this time. She had faith that Jack would see them through.

Turning to look at her big brother, she noted the tension in his face. Though it was dark out he was squinting, his features strained. Whether it was pain or concentration she couldn’t tell, but knew there wasn’t a thing she could do to help him. Not now. They couldn’t stop. Jack jerked the wheel and Sam slid again, this time into Tammy. Looking to her only female companion, if she was female, Sam gave an apologetic smile as the truck jumped with a loud clang followed by a rhythmic
thud, thud, thud
as Ole Bessy swerved suddenly to the right only to be jerked back on course again by Jack. The truck vibrated, shaking violently with every thud emitted from somewhere outside their vehicle. Sam recognized the problem. She had heard and felt it before in Mom’s car on the interstate. Getting a flat tire, her mom had immediately pulled off the side of the road and stopped, but Jack didn’t. He kept on fighting the now crippled truck, and Sam watched the sweat bead on his head as he clenched his jaw. It was over and she knew it. Ole Bessy was as good as dead, and they were going to have to run.

Lurching to the side again, the rapid succession of thuds ceased as Bessy jumped upwards slightly once before settling again with a spine-tingling hiss. Like fingernails on a chalkboard, the old truck careened onward into the night as sparks exploded from out of the front passenger wheel well. Sam had seen it a hundred times on those cop shows where a car lost a tire and continued on with just steel wheels. She never imagined that it would be this scary inside the vehicle, however, and wrapped one hand around Will’s waist, pulling him tightly to her while raising her other hand to the dash in an attempt to brace herself for the impact she was sure was coming.

Again the tires screamed as the hiss was suddenly lost, and Sam was thrown into Jack hard as they tore around a corner she hadn’t even noticed. The lights reflected by the mirrors from behind them vanished. For more than an hour the land had been nothing but fields and old charred farm houses reduced to skeletal structures and wild growth, but now Sam noticed a change as she tried to scoot herself and Will back to the center of the bench seat. Trees. There were trees, and trees meant they could hide. Jack had led them to some sort of safety no matter how temporary, but even so he didn’t stop. With sparks flying and the truck shaking more violently by the second he struggled to keep them going, pushing Ole Bessy to cough and sputter as black smoke began wafting up through the vents in the dash. Though she couldn’t hear him over the failing truck, Sam felt Will cough as the smoke began growing thicker in the cab. Time was up. They couldn’t risk another asthma attack.

Releasing her death grip on the dash, Sam tugged at Jack’s sleeve.

“We gotta get outta here!” she yelled over the clamor.

With nothing more than a nod and a determined look, Jack swerved around an abandoned car just as headlights reappeared behind them. Whoever followed had found where they had turned off the road just a couple miles back. Without warning, Sam was thrown forward with Will as they slammed into the dash, the truck’s tires screeching in protest as Jack locked up the brakes. Uprighting herself and assuring herself that Will was uninjured, Sam turned as Jack yanked on the shift lever and shoved open his door. She vaguely noted that Tammy opened her door as well, and helped Will off her lap, and he climbed free from the truck as she followed. Without warning, Jack jumped back into the truck and as he threw the shift lever forward, Sam watched with open mouth as the tires tore free from the pavement, squealing for a second, before Ole Bessy raced forward, directly towards a pair of abandoned vehicles ahead. There wasn’t room to get around them, nor between them. Sam watched on in horror as Jack sped towards what could only be one outcome.

* * * * *

The whole night had been awesome, minus the bad parts. Will felt like he was in an action movie. Escaping a cage, thwarting the enemy and taking their truck, followed by a high speed chase in the dark. What more could you ask for? Well, beside some chicken nuggets and a candy bar. He realized they were running again and it was dangerous. He wasn’t stupid, but both Mom and Dad had told him not to focus on the negative. If you thought positive, you got positive, and he had to admit—they were right. Holy awesome-sauce, it was like being in a movie, and Will watched on as Jack dove out of Bessy’s driver door just before the old truck crashed with two more cars and his big brother rolled to his feet just like an action hero. What was better, Will knew what to do next. He’d seen it a hundred times and it was perfect.

Watching Jack come running back towards them, Will took Sam and Tammy’s hands as both of the girls exchanged surprised looks at Jack’s awesome display of superheroism.

“They can’t get through with their car now so they’ll have to follow us on foot,” Jack announced as he neared.

Will knew he was right. There was no way a car could get down the road now. With trees hugging the road on either side and the trio of smashed vehicles taking up the whole road, it was a dead end.

“C’mon. If we keep going we can get a head start,” Jack said, turning back the way they had been traveling.

“Wait,” Will said urgently.

He knew time was short but this was important, not to mention better than what Jack was planning.

“What would you do if you came up to this?” Will asked his bigger brother, waving his hands frantically.

“If I was chasing us?” Jack asked.

Will nodded animatedly.

“I’d get out and see if they… we… were still in the truck.”

“Exactly!” Will shouted. “Instead of running, let’s hide here and when they get out, we’ll just take
their
car.”

“I like the way you think, little man,” Jack grinned after a moment’s hesitation.

“Me too,” Sam smiled wickedly.

Without another word Jack was headed off the road and Will followed with the girls. Already the sound of the approaching car was growing, but well before the lights fell upon him, Will was ducked down with his siblings and Tammy, hidden at the road’s edge behind a thick clump of brush and fallen limbs. Moments later, just as Will had anticipated, the small car slowed to a stop directly in front of them. It was an older thing that looked to have been pieced together from lots of different cars. Though the majority of the car was a reddish-orange color, the front door was green and back door blue. Not only that, but it looked to Will like the front tire was too small, and back tire too big, but that was of little importance to his plan.

Two doors on the car opened and Will expected to see Grant, the leader of the resistance and the crazy scientist, Dr. Darvski. Instead, out stepped Tom, the large boy who had helped capture Tammy, and Cole, the scientist’s son. Even better. Holding his breath, Will watched them leave the car, engine running, and doors open. He couldn’t have planned it more perfectly himself. Within seconds the two boys had strayed more than half the distance between their parked car and Ole Bessy, the headlights of their car beaming brightly on their backs. It was time to move.

Following Jack, just as before, Will watched him climb carefully free from the brush as he scrambled nearly on all fours back up to the road. Next was Tammy, and Will was careful to stay right on her heels, leaving Sam to take up the rear. Everything was going flawlessly. Looking ahead, Will watched as Jack ducked into the driver’s seat as Tammy carefully opened the back door and climbed in, scooting across the seat for him to join.

“Hey, theys takin’ the car!” Will heard the familiar voice of Tom shout into the darkness.

Freezing in his tracks, Will looked towards the direction of the shout and witnessed as Tom and Cole began rushing towards them. There was nothing he could do, and as such Will simply acted upon instinct.

“Don’t move!” Will shouted at the boys as he rushed once again towards the welcoming open door of the car.

Much to his surprise the two boys froze in their tracks. Whether it was because they were blinded now with the headlights in their faces and feared rushing into the unknown, he couldn’t tell, but it didn’t matter. Not now, anyhow. Diving into the back seat of the car, Will tore his eyes from the boys and pulled the door closed as two more doors echoed his own. On the two pursuers came once more, revealing for the first time that Tom was armed with a baseball bat.

Clicking his seatbelt into place as Jack shifted the car into reverse, Will knew it was action movie time again. For just a moment the car’s engine whined as they shot backwards a short stretch down the road with both of the Resistance’s boys chasing. Then, like a slingshot, the car whipped around as the tires screeched in complaint before shooting off again, this time racing forward in the direction they had come just a short time ago. Looking down to his feet, Will could see a small duffel bag only half closed and stuffed with meager supplies. He knew that they could use the supplies but it didn’t feel right to leave the other boys stranded with nothing to eat or drink. Reaching across to the door, he hand cranked the window down before pulling the zipper to the bag closed. Hefting it from his feet, Will stuffed the bag out the window as Tammy smiled at him knowingly. Superheroes always did the right thing, even if it meant sacrificing something they needed.