Children of the After: The Complete Series: A Young Adult Postapocalyptic Action and Adventure series (34 page)

It was perhaps around mid-day when Jack pulled the car to the side of the road and turned the ignition to stop the engine. Without a word he stepped out of the car as Tammy and her other companions watched him walk to the back. Opening the trunk, he removed their last can of gas and proceeded to pour it into the tank of the car. That was it. If it didn’t last them to wherever it was that they were supposed to be going, then they would have to go on foot, a thought they all likely shared as Tammy looked to the frightened faces of her friends. None of them wanted to be outside the security of their car.

Looking back to Jack, Tammy watched as he let the final drops of fuel drip from the can into the car and returned the cap. He didn’t even bother to keep the can. Instead, he placed it at the side of the road and slammed the trunk closed as he returned to the driver’s seat.

“That’s it, guys,” Jack admitted. “I can’t say exactly how much was left in the tank, but that was only about four more gallons. I figure we have two to three hours of driving left, then it’s… Well, you know.”

“How far do you think they might have gotten?” Tammy asked in reference to the group of scouts they sought.

“I don’t know. We haven’t seen any sign of them, but they have had weeks. Who knows how far they might have gone? They might have even changed directions. There is no way to know. All we can do is keep going and hope to find answers along the way. It’s gotten us this far,” Jack said.

Tammy didn’t like it. She thought that they would have found some clue by now. Maybe they missed something. It was frightening to know you were moving towards an event that was already determined, but not knowing what might lay ahead in wait upon the path that destiny had chosen for you. All she could do was have faith that they would succeed, as Jack said, simply by continuing on with the hope of finding something. For now there was nothing she could do about it, and so she turned her attention back to her window, searching everything she could see for a sign that would tell them they were headed in the right direction.

Her eyes flitting from one object outside their car to another, Tammy focused on her task as Jack pulled the car back onto the road and onward towards whatever awaited.

With the engine sputtering and threatening to stall, Jack pulled the piecemeal import off the side of the road out of habit more than necessity. It wasn’t like he needed to clear the lanes for traffic. Turning the key to kill the engine, Jack sighed. He hadn’t been too far off. The gas had lasted about three hours by his guesstimate, and carried them over the back roads for nearly two hundred miles. All the while he had searched everything ahead for any sign that they might be going in the right direction, but there were none.

Wherever they were, it was rural and for miles on end they hadn’t seen so much as the charred remains of a single farm house, at least not until the last hour or so. For the last fifty miles, Jack had noted that intersections came more frequently, and then the collapsed, burned out husks of houses. Occasionally there were signs beside the road, but the paint was burned off. Even so, signs were proof of communities and even though they had yet to pass through anything he would call a town, he was certain that he was staring one down as he unfastened his seat belt.

Just beyond the horizon ahead, there appeared to be a collection of buildings. With all the charred signs and homes they had passed in the last five miles or so, he imagined it had to be a decent sized community at one time. If there were going to be people, of any race, it would make sense that they might have chosen here to hide. If not, they might have at least left clues as to where they went, or where there were other people, or where the enemy might be. The enemy… it was weird to think of it like that. Sure, they had been attacked and invaded by some species of aliens from a far off world, but an enemy? Jack didn’t really know what to think about it. So he chose not to. At least for now.

Climbing out of the car with the sun already well past its apex, Jack pulled his backpack from the car. It was a dangerous decision to continue on when night was only a few hours away, but staying here in the car wasn’t any safer. They would have to look for shelter elsewhere, and the most apparent location was straight ahead.

Waiting for his siblings and Tammy to gather what few belongings they had, Jack stared out across the miles to what appeared to be the remains of a town. From here it was obvious that some buildings still stood in various states of destruction, but there was no telling how large a community it might have been. At least not from here.

“Let’s go, guys,” Jack said, starting off down the center of the road.

Without a word of reply, all four began to trundle along, each lost in their own thoughts. Jack peered about to either side of the road, preferring if possible to spend the night outside the town ahead, but the prospect was not looking likely. As far as he could see, either side of the road was populated only by empty fields or the charred, skeletal remains of what were once homes and barns. Once, he noted the remains of a horse-drawn cart, and wondered if this was once an Amish community, though he doubted it. If what Davrski had told them was true, then only houses with electricity would have burned, but if that was the case, then did that mean the Amish were spared from the initial attack? It was a possibility he hadn’t pondered before and it sent his mind reeling about the origins of the rider, the man who had followed them only to save them from the ape-like aliens, what seemed like a long time ago.

Unsure how long he had let his mind drift, Jack looked up again to realize they had already walked several miles. Though they still had a long way to go, with every step the town grew clearer on the horizon, and it became that much more evident that they would have no choice but to seek shelter within the town itself.

Up ahead, perhaps ten miles, stood the twisted and broken skeletons of what had once been buildings that stood stories high. Now, little more than twisted steel and rubble stood as evidence of the once pristine buildings, and the skyline appeared more the carcass of a rotting thing than the remains of a once thriving community. Jack shivered at the thought, knowing very well that something might dwell within the ruins that even now could be watching them approach, waiting for them to fall victim to its trap. Shaking his head, he knew that there was nothing else he could do but keep going, lead them to the settlement ahead, and hope for the best. If they did get into trouble, he would just have to do his best to keep them safe. The same thing he had been doing since day one. Squaring his shoulders, Jack lifted his head and walked forward defiantly. If something or someone was watching them come, he would not let them know he was afraid.

* * * * *

Sam didn’t like the look of the town ahead. It reminded her a lot of her first sights of Chicago when they had emerged from the vault. As they grew nearer and nearer to the ruins, more became visible and distinct and the less she wanted to keep going. Something felt wrong here. Eerie.  She couldn’t put her finger on what exactly it was, but something was off. Step after dreadful step she continued on with Tammy at her side, following behind both of her brothers who walked ahead as if they were invincible. Boys… always acting macho.

As the miles passed beneath her, Sam again cursed her selection of boots. It had been days since she had been forced to walk long distances, let alone run, but even as broken in as her boots were, they simply weren’t comfortable to wear. Maybe, just maybe, somewhere ahead there would be a pair of shoes that wouldn’t hurt her feet. All she had to do was find it…

“Holy crap!” Sam almost shouted, causing everyone to stop suddenly and look at her.

“What?” Jack asked, turning his head this way and that to make sure there wasn’t something he missed.

“This is stupid.”

“What is?” Tammy asked before Jack could respond.

“All this walking. I don’t have to walk. I can get to the town ahead, and find us a place to hunker down for the night way faster than this.”

She couldn’t believe she had overlooked it. They all had. She was their own perfect recon team. She could blink ahead into any place she could see. From here she could be to the edge of town in an instant and then to any place she could see from there. Within moments she could scour the town and decide if it was safe to venture in, and she might even find out if there were other people or aliens lying in wait.

“You going alone sounds dangerous,” Jack said, but Sam had already made up her mind.

It was dangerous, venturing anywhere alone these days. Of that she was certain. But it was far safer for her to do it her way than all of them simply walk into the place blind as to what may lie hidden ahead. Turning her eyes from her older brother who still protested against the idea, Sam focused on a point between two buildings ahead.

Blinking rapidly, she fought the dizzy swirling sensation in her head and got her bearings. Just ahead of her, to her left, stood what was once a four or five story apartment building. Now, however, it was little more than vertical and horizontal beams of steel and pipe, coated by ash and soot with a pile of rubble surrounding it at least twelve feet thick. Unless something hid buried in the rubble, there was nothing of concern there.

Opposite the first building, to Sam’s right, stood a smaller, though less damaged building. It could have been a small warehouse or store at one time, but now much of it had collapsed. Two of the exterior walls still stood, leaning inward, appearing that they would fall at any second. From her vantage, she could not tell if the building was constructed of steel or cement, but realized that it really didn’t matter.

Waiting for several moments, listening and looking for any sign of movement or danger, she risked a look back over her shoulder to her siblings and Tammy far behind her. Though she couldn’t be certain, it appeared they were now running in an attempt to catch up. Turning her attention back towards the town, she focused on a cluster of other buildings several streets ahead that looked to be in decent shape. Concentrating, she again blinked out of sight.

Steadying herself, Sam peered about at the rubble-strewn streets all around her.  Movement to her left catching her attention, she turned in time to see large flakes of ash settling to the ground as a cool breeze blew across her face and neck. With a shiver running down her spine, she looked up to the buildings around her. Though from afar they had looked more or less complete, it was apparent now that the two story brick buildings were worse off than she had imagined.

Probably built as store fronts in the fifties, the four buildings, each accompanying one of the four corners of the intersection, were little more than piled debris, just waiting to crumble to the ground. Held together by some kind of wire frame hidden in the mortar, whole sections of the walls hung out from the buildings, slowly waving this way and that in the breeze. Huge cracks climbed the walls on all four buildings and sections leaned this way and that, ready to crumble away and shatter upon the ground. All four were death traps. Nothing with half a brain would even consider using them as shelter. Sam looked about for a place to teleport to.

Realizing she needed a better view of the town around her, Sam spotted a structure just down the road that appeared to have an intact roof. Though much of the walls had crumbled, the main structure of the building looked fit enough and as such, Sam concentrated and blinked across the distance in an instant.

Unexpectedly, as soon as Sam reappeared, a blast of wind slammed her in the back, driving her towards the edge of the building’s roof. Twisting as she fell, thrown off balance by the wind, Sam collapsed to the tar and pebble roof, the wind breaking over her as she struggled to calm her pounding heart.

Taking a deep breath, she looked out across the devastated scene surrounding her. Just as it had been in Chicago, everything was burned, destroyed, and in ruins. It was sickening, that all life that had once flourished was now gone. There were no dogs barking, no horns honking, no sounds of life anywhere. All of it was gone.

Turning to face the opposite direction, Sam was careful not to turn her body into the wind when she saw something she had not expected. There, just six or seven blocks away was a vehicle in the road, the likes she could recognize even from here. Painted to match a desert terrain, a giant tank sat beside a military Humvee with matching paint, the two taking up the entire road as if placed as a barricade. Straining her eyes further, she could see other vehicles parked in such a way as to block other streets as well.

Turning her eyes both this way and that she located not only vehicular barricades, but sandbag barricades and razor wire here and there as if… was it possible? Had they found a military base? Sam blinked off the roof.

Ducking low beside the tank’s tread, she peered out between it and the Humvee to the nearest ring of stacked sandbags. Now that she was closer, and the setting sun wasn’t in her eyes, she could see the barrel of some sort of large gun thrusting out of the sandbag post. All about, large wooden structures shaped like childhood jacks but made out of wood were scattered about the streets and stretched between them in twisted coils was razor wire.

Fearing she might get herself shot, Sam peered into the darkness of that nearest sandbag structure and ported into the makeshift defense. Blinking her eyes, hoping to adjust to the darkness quickly, she found little more than some trash, a canteen, and an abandoned helmet. Empty. They were gone.

Sam knew that the military wouldn’t simply leave a bunch of tanks and other vehicles along with super-sized machine guns just laying around in the street unless they were either all dead or too afraid to come and get them. She had no idea when, but it was apparent that at some point the military had tried to put up a fight here and lost.

Climbing out of the defensive ring of sandbags, Sam walked down the street and around the corner to view a long sprawling building with the same defensive structures placed all about it. It was the reason for the vehicular barricades and all the razor wire. It was a long and low building comprising of but a single story that stretched on for the whole length of the block. At first Sam assumed it was a military base, here in the center of town. She had seen such buildings containing National Guard members, but her theory was quickly dashed as she made her way towards the front of the building. There, engraved into the concrete wall of the structure was the true purpose of the only building that she could see that had survived the blast. Milton Elementary School.

Built from concrete, cinder blocks, and brick, the building had nearly completely survived. Looking across its face, she could see that all the windows and doors had been replaced by plywood or metal panels, covering all places where the glass had been broken. Likely an attempt to fortify the building by whatever military force had once tried to defend it. It would be the perfect place to spend the night, assuming of course that no other inhabitants already dwelt there. There was only one way to find out.

* * * * *

Will was running. Again. He was tired of running. Again. The only difference this time from any other was the fact that they were for once running towards something instead of away from something. He guessed at least that much was good. At least now he didn’t have to worry about his asthma. He could simply order his body to breathe right and it would. Then again, he could simply order Jack and Tammy to stop running and that would be the end of it, but he couldn’t. Not because he promised not to use his powers on them, but because Jack was right. Sam shouldn’t have gone into the town alone. It wasn’t safe. Even with special abilities.

So here they were, running again, but Will’s shorter legs just couldn’t compete with his track star brother or even Tammy’s longer limbs.