Abandon (2 page)

Moving to the bathroom she opened up the drawers under her vanity and pulled out all the toilet paper, soap, tampons and condoms she could find.  She skipped the make-up strewn across the sink, but grabbed the most important jewelry from the antique box her mother had given for her sixteenth birthday.  Then it was onto the shower for shampoo and her razor. Tossing everything into one of the duffle bags, she migrated to the kitchen to grab all her first aid supplies and anything non-perishable from her pantry.  Beans, noodles, sauces, canned vegetables and fruits went into one of the rolling suitcases.  In her living room she grabbed a stack of board games that didn’t require power to operate, and stopped in her tracks in front of the TV looking at her various gaming systems.  She had an idea of the vacation home they would probably end up commandeering and hoped it would have power.  If it did, the Xbox would be a welcome distraction during some of the most cabin fevered times.  Besides, everyone liked to play games on the Kinect.  Shoving the game console and all games into a duffle bag she looked at the clock on her microwave.  It was 10:15 - she could start packing her car, be making calls and going door to door to grab the people who mattered by 11 AM.  

Sitting on the couch in her living room she looked around the apartment she had lived in for a little over six months.  She had never really liked the apartment; it had always felt like a downgrade from her previous living situations.  Prior to it she had lived in beautiful townhouses in the heart of her small town but hard times had forced her to make hard choices. Since she was leaving without knowing exactly when she would be back she felt some pangs of regret.  She had always looked at the apartment as a stopgap to wherever her true destination was.  Maybe if she had hung up some of her posters, put a little into decorating it, it might not have felt so bad.  Maybe it would have felt a little more like home.  Glancing at the white wall in front of her she wondered if she’d miss the apartment if she never came back.  Standing up off the couch, she pushed the thoughts of the apartment from her mind and began the process of lugging the bags from the third floor to her car.    

Chapter 2:  Cort

Ellicott City, Maryland
December 12, 2012

“You can’t be serious,” Katy exclaimed as Cort was rushing around the room grabbing everything he needed for the upcoming weeks.  “It’s just some little riots in DC, it will never reach here.”

“How do you know it will never reach here?” he replied as he searched his closet for the case that held all the ammo for his guns.  Finding it, hidden behind a stack of summer clothes he was sure probably needed washing, he placed it on the bed next to where Katy sat cross legged and headed back to the closet for the actual weaponry.

“Because we’re in Ellicott City!  The feds will have it contained and under control soon.  It’s just a few unhappy people.” she said as he pulled all his guns from the topmost shelf and put them on the bed.  “Are those guns?”

“Yes, they are guns,” he replied pointing at the TV across the room. “Those aren’t just a ‘few’ unhappy people.  That’s a lot of unhappy people that it seems like the government can’t control and I’m not staying here to find out what happens when they fail.”  

He checked the barrel of each gun making sure they were clear.  Through the scope of his rifle he could see Katy’s exacerbated look.  She was beautiful, with her long blond hair and hazel eyes.  She had perky breasts that were a C cup, just enough to fill one hand each.  Her ass was round and firm and she had legs a mile long.  If they were walking down the street it would be a fair assessment that she was definitely dating down.  Unfortunately, for all the beauty that the Gods had given her they had almost comically deprived her of any sort of ability to think in a deep or analytical way.  She was unable to see beyond the things right in front of her and look at the bigger picture.  Right now was a perfect example; the fact that she thought the government would just swoop in and magically fix what had been going on in DC for weeks was comical.  

He had only been seeing Katy for two weeks and he was mentally cursing himself for calling her last night.  In the time he’d known her he hadn’t found her to excel at anything besides sex.  That had been fine for what he needed yesterday but when he had looked at rioting on the news he realized that Katy would probably be a liability in his current escape plans.   First of all, she wouldn’t fit in the group of people he planned to take with him, all of which were deep thinkers.  Second, the way she was looking at the guns which laid on the bed meant that Katy would probably rebel against ever using one, making her an ineffective member of any survival group.  Cursing himself again, he wondered if there was any way out of having her come.

She moved her hand to run it through her hair.   “Cort, I think you’re being totally whack right now.”  

Cort was about to respond when his phone started vibrating on the bedside table.  Picking it up he saw the text and sighed in relief.  

Car is packed.  Getting people then heading to the rally point.  <3

Annalise would be there.  When he had sent the rapid fire texts earlier, he hadn’t truly expected her to respond.  They hadn’t spoken in nearly six months and he imagined she would probably delete any sort of attempt at communication.  He had to try though because all the plans he had for this event had revolved around her presence.  Sure, he had been planning for this long before he actually met her, but once she had entered his life, he couldn’t imagine doing any of this without her.  When she had first responded that she remembered, and she would meet him at the rally point he had been elated and relieved.  If no one else met them out there or came with him, he knew that he could count on her to be his survival partner.   Even now, the text that she was packed and on her way allowed him to breathe a little easier.  

Of course, there was the issue of Katy.  A large part of him was hoping that Katy would decide to stay in this area of Maryland.  Her friends were here, her entire life.  Cort was just a recent fuck buddy and there was no reason she should put her life on hold to come with him, especially since she was considering him “whack” at the moment.  Even though he was trying to rationalize it in a way that made Katy staying a better situation for her, he knew he was just reluctant to put Annalise and Katy in the same cabin or enclosed space for any period of time.  Annalise would see her for what she was, which would be a drain on their collective resources, if they were required to hang out in the mountains for anything longer than a week.  Katy would probably view Annalise as a threat to the only person she really knew.  It was better for everyone involved if Katy stayed in the suburbs.  

Putting his phone into his pocket so Katy couldn’t see who the text was from, he grabbed a bag from the bed and tossed it into the hallway.  “I’m not being unreasonable, and I don’t need to explain myself to you.  I’m leaving here in forty five minutes.  If you want to come, be here.  If not, maybe I’ll see you when all of this is over.”

Katy jumped off the bed in a huff, grabbing her clothes that had been strewn across the room the night before.  He had been at the bar with some friends and called her when he reached the point where he was more than a little drunk.  Upon coming home he discovered her on his doorstep and they had ripped each other’s clothes off in a fit of alcohol fueled passion once they hit the bedroom.  “Fine, whatever, have fun in the mountains,” she huffed walking out of the bedroom and slamming the door behind her.  

Cort didn’t even call after her and instead single mindedly focused at the task at hand.  He had gun, knifes, clothes and some paper and books.  Looking into his closet he started pulling out camping supplies and sleeping bags.  They would need these if they couldn’t find a cabin that happened to be empty and unlocked.  After packing everything into the bags he opened his door and moved it all into the hallway.  Looking at the pile he was glad he had an SUV so that everything could fit.  He rapped quickly on his roommates door.  “Jake, you awake?”

Jake opened the door and peered around it, smirking at Cort.  “Yeah I was just trying to avoid the awkward conversation between you and your fuck buddy.  I take it she decided you were full of shit?”

Cort checked down the stairs to make sure she had made it out the front door.  “Thank God, she would have been nothing but a drain.  You almost ready to go?”

“Yeah, almost.  Where we headed to?” Jake responded as he hoisted a huge duffle bag over his shoulder.  

“Cumberland.  Annalise is going to meet us there, as well as Kevin and Jenna.  I want to see if we can convince my parents to come as well.”

“If we can’t, I can always throw them over my shoulder.  Your parents are no match for my strength,” he laughed as he walked down the stairs.   Cort grinned too, mentally laughing at the image of Jake throwing his mother over his shoulder like the cave men of old did to their women.  Jake had grown up in the wilderness of Alaska, chopping down trees with his dad for a living since the age of twelve.  His physique showed it despite the years of drinking and general wastefulness he had partaken in since moving to Maryland for college.  His forearms were most often referred to jokingly as the size of Cort’s whole head, and it wasn’t exactly untrue.  Last time they had been to the gym he had been able to bench press 300 pounds without breaking a sweat.   Because of his sheer size and history in the great white wilderness that is Alaska, he had been an obvious choice for Cort’s perfect survival team.  Luckily Jake rarely questioned Cort and had a habit of following wherever he went, so when Cort had knocked on Jake’s door earlier and hollered that the world was falling apart and Jake should probably pack all his shit, Jake had apparently began just that.  

Cort walked down the stairs into the kitchen with one of the empty duffle bags and started putting all non-perishable goods he could see in the pantry inside.  They would probably have to hit a couple of stores on the way out to get more supplies, but whatever they could get out of the house was guaranteed survival food.  When he finished in the pantry, he moved to the counter and began opening drawers to get any knifes and silverware that might be useful.  He could hear Jake coming and going through the front door, presumably loading all their gear into Cort’s Suburban.  Although the plan was to take both cars, Cort’s car was significantly bigger than Jake’s Jeep Wrangler and could hold more equipment.  Whatever gear and food they got from the stores they hit on the way to Cumberland they could load in Jake’s car.  Cort heard the door open again and Jake’s voice boom down the hallway.

“Katy’s car just pulled up, Boss.”

Cort groaned and tossed a can opener into the duffle bag as he walked to the door.  Katy was getting out of her tiny Smart Car and he could see she was visibly shaken and had been crying.  Stepping down the couple of steps on his front porch he looked at her quizzically.

“My... the... I don’t have a home,” she managed to get out between sobs.  “It’s on fire.  It’s gone.  I... I have nowhere to go.”

Chapter 3:  Annalise

Northern Virginia
December 12, 2012

Opening the door to her best friend’s one-bedroom apartment, Annalise smiled.  Meredith’s house always smelled like a grandmother's kitchen.  A couple months back, Meredith had finally grown tired of her 9-5 job with the government and quit without notice to focus on her budding bakery business.  Most people were shocked with her decision but it turned out to be the right one because with the holidays coming up, business had been booming.  Right now the apartment smelled like peppermint and sugar, and she imagined that Meredith would probably be in the kitchen, making a cupcake or some candies.  

“Hey, Mere, you here?” she yelled out as she kicked off her shoes at the door.  Walking out of the foyer into the living room she saw Meredith had been watching the same news channel Annalise had earlier in the morning.  The images were still rolling across the screen of the destruction in DC and it appeared the government was preparing to release some new calming agent onto the rioters.

“In the bedroom!” she heard Meredith yell back to her.  “Hold on two seconds, I’ll be right out!”

Annalise sat down on the couch, watching the images scroll across the TV.  The government was creating a wall to stop the rioters from crossing the 14th Street Bridge into Virginia.  The announcer was speaking in very serious tones about how the government shouldn’t release the calming agent on to the crowd because it wasn’t FDA approved yet.  Another announcer rebutted that mustard gas wasn’t FDA approved either and something had to be done before the situation got even more out of hand.  The image switched to a solitary car burning somewhere in DC, and then to a twelve story apartment complex where apparently there were residents trapped in the building.  The resources of the city were stretched so thin that there were no firefighters to help them, so they had started jumping.  

Meredith walked out of her bedroom freshly showered, rolling a suitcase behind her.  “I was wondering if I’d see you before you left.”