Ravaged Land - A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (24 page)

It was getting dark quicker the further north we traveled, and it didn’t take much darkness to put me into a light sleep, riding this much was both tiring and boring. I was out before I could offer to take my turn that would end up with me getting teased for my grandmotherly driving speed. Most of the time Dean and Owen had been switching off, but they had to be tired. They’d tried to teach Sienna to drive on one stretch of road but she didn’t like it. It made her nervous and the lessons ended up taking too long, so they gave up and didn’t make her try again. Ryan was physically incapable of taking his turns but the least I could do is continue to take mine and do my best at driving faster. They probably wanted to get help for Ryan just as fast as I did and knew that would mean not letting me drive.

I was certain that everyone knew something was wrong with Ryan but still no one had asked about it. Maybe because of the fever they just thought it was a stubborn virus, but as far as I could tell they hadn’t guessed it was related to the wound. I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d have to tell them.

I didn’t even realize I had fallen asleep until the rough swerving of the car had woken me. Owen was in the passenger seat and he too must have been jostled awake by the movement. “What’s going on?” he demanded. Owen had sort of taken over as group leader while Ryan was incapacitated.

“An animal or something, sorry about that,” he said focusing on the road. He swerved again and the SUV rocked. “Jesus! Stop running into the road,” he yelled at the windshield after another animal darted across the road. He pounded the steering wheel with his palms.

“What was it?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

Then there was another, and another. Dean slowed the car and then the whole car jumped to the side when one of them ran into the front fender with a solid thud.

“Oh God!” Dean said peering out the window seeing something I couldn’t.

“Christ,” Owen said seconds later when he saw what Dean had seen.

“What?” I asked.

“Stampede!” Dean said, “Hold on!” as he drove off of the road and into the ditch, sort of using a tree as a shield.

The animals ran across the road heading northwest, they ran like they were running away from something fearing for their lives. Our car was parked just at the edge of their pack, we’d get hit by one every so often and it would feel like the car might tip. I watched the herd of beasts running and jumping over the hood of our car and hoped they wouldn’t do any major damage. It would be an absolute disaster to get stranded out here without a working car. Cities were farther apart the further north we traveled. We could drive an hour or more without seeing a gas station.

“Are they deer?” I asked. I was seeing them a little clearer now that the majority of them had passed and the dust they were stirring up was settling, but I still wasn’t sure.

“Yeah,” Owen confirmed.

“Why are they all going north?” I wondered out loud.

“Maybe they are going to HOME too,” Dean joked.

“Or maybe just to escape the heat,” Owen suggested.

There was a big thud as one ran smack into the side of the SUV. None of us were expecting it as the herd had thinned so much. Sienna and I screamed. I glanced at Ryan, his eyes were half open, but rolled back and closed when the car stopped rocking.

“Let’s get going,” Dean said as he put the car into drive and got us out of the ditch moving us forward once again. I was curious to see what the car would look like after all those deer had hit us. I imagined it was pretty beat up, several of the hits were very hard. It was running fine though, and that’s what mattered.

I breathed heavily, glad it was over and that we were back on the road towards HOME, which hopefully had a team of medical professionals.

* * *

On our third day on the road Ryan was officially staying in the backseat. With his fever he spent most of his time sleeping or groaning. He was getting worse fast. Ryan was still able to eat a little and drink water which I thought was good. He was fighting with everything he had, but today his whole arm from his shoulder to his fingertips was covered with the deep red of infection. The wound had grown larger, but with him being out more often he was scratching at it less which seemed to have slowed it down. I still cleaned it with water and antibiotic cream even though it clearly wasn’t making any difference. At least it made me feel like I was doing something and maybe the clean bandage every so often was what was keeping the infection from raging and taking him over.

At one stop I had talked to Ryan about wanting to tell the others what was going on. He gave me his blessing to talk to them about it with a small nod. So I did. They didn’t react. Perhaps they had sort of expected it all along as they knew Ryan had gotten bit by the dog. That hadn’t been a secret, we all had been there. Or maybe they had overheard him and I talking one time or put one and one together. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that everyone wanted to get him help as soon as possible. No one said it, but we desperately, me especially, didn’t want to lose another of our own. Hell, it was likely none of us would even be here if it hadn’t been for Ryan. We owed him.

They would give us alone time when I cleaned his bandage, and I’d talk to him about whatever popped into my head, the only topic that was completely off limits was Seth. I’d try to keep his spirits up even though he barely responded to me. Most of the time, the best I got was him looking at me through his half closed eyes or just a small squeeze from the hand on his unwounded arm.

After I’d spend time with him, I’d leave the car and crouch down beside the wheel and let my tears flood out of my eyes. The others would give me space, let me get it out, until it was time to go and then they would usually send Sienna for me, to look for supplies or use the bathroom. It was something to take my mind off of what was happening to Ryan and even though they felt awful about it too, they refused to show it in front of me. They stayed strong for me. I didn’t say anything but I appreciated it.

I’d always look at the medical supplies hoping we could find something, a magical solution to the problem. Something I hadn’t thought of trying. But the gas stations never had anything. A few different medicine brands, different kinds of bandages, but nope, none of the gas stations had carried miracles. It had gone beyond anything I could do for him.

“Let’s go,” Owen said when we were all gathered around the car. He was taking the next driving shift to give Dean a rest.

Sienna climbed in the car first and I started to follow until I heard the extra footsteps behind us. They were running towards us, something grabbed the back of my shirt and I was pulled backwards. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dean being aggressively pushed down against the cement. Owen ducked down on the other side of the car. I hadn’t had time to grab my gun. Whoever had me had his arm wrapped around my neck so tightly I was gasping for air and clawing at his arm.

“You guys can’t just come here and take stuff, this is our place,” the guy holding me said.

“You have to pay for that stuff one way or another!” the other guy yelled at Dean as he punched him in the ribs. The guy with his knee pressed down on Dean’s spine had a big sheathed knife in his belt and a gun pocket on the other side of the belt. I didn’t know what the guy holding me had, except for exceptional strength. At least he had eventually eased up enough for me to get a few solid breaths.

I heard Dean coughing and choking out, “OK, OK!” Sienna was pounding on the door and yelling for him to stop from inside the van. I was hoping she’d quickly close the door and lock it keeping her and Ryan safe but she didn’t. The punching guy realized there was someone in the van and he went for her, even though he hadn’t done anything to restrain Dean. He must have thought the beating would be enough.

Dean acted fast and grabbed the guy’s foot tripping him, which took Punchy by complete surprise. He hit the cement hard. This gave Owen an opportunity to come around the front of the SUV with his gun drawn at the guy on the ground. It made me think the guy holding me must not have had a gun, or Owen would have likely pointed it at him, at least that was my best guess.

“Let her go,” Owen said to the guy holding me but never taking his eyes off the guy on the ground. When he reached for his gun, Owen shot the ground ten feet away from his head, but close enough to scare Punchy. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you… stay down. Don’t move,” Owen said putting his foot on top of the man’s hand. Punchy squirmed and cried out in pain.

The guy holding me tightened his grip again. I couldn’t speak. All I could do was claw at his arm with my fingernails hoping he’d let go, or at the very least loosen his grip so I could get some oxygen.

“Take his weapons,” Owen said instructing Sienna. She quickly followed his order. Dean had managed to get to his feet with one hand holding his middle and the other holding a gun. Blood dripped from his nose and mouth. He stood next to Owen, “Get him up,” he ordered, and Dean obeyed. He kicked him in the side, harder than I would have imagined Dean was capable of, then he pulled Punchy to his feet. Dean held him there by twisting his arm around his back, it almost looked as though Dean could snap it like a twig if he wanted to. A move I wondered if he had learned from his survival books and magazines.

“Trade?” Owen said to the man holding me.

“You’ll just kill us,” he said, “The second I let her go, you’ll pull that trigger!”

“I don’t want to kill you. I didn’t want any trouble… you two idiots started this. I want her back and if you don’t give her back well then I can’t make any promises,” Owen said. Maybe it was from the lack of oxygen but I had an out-of-body experience as if I was watching everything play out like a movie in the theater. Everything around me was dark and quiet, the sound was loud and the screen almost too bright. “Let her go, and you can have your friend back and no one gets hurt.”

He hissed like a scared cat and pushed me towards Owen. He turned and ran like his life depended on it. He ran until he was far enough away to pull out his gun from his ankle holster and take a shot in our direction. The bullet whistled somewhere past my left ear. He missed by a mile thankfully, but would I be so lucky on the next one? Owen held Punchy out in front of us like a shield while we started to climb into the SUV. He shot at us again, another miss. The third bullet, however, didn’t miss.

Chapter twenty.

I screamed when I heard the little thud of the bullet hitting its target. Owen dropped Punchy unable to hold all of his weight. Blood pooled out around his shoulder and soaked into his clothing.

Dean shoved me into the SUV and slammed the door behind me. He moved as fast as he could to the driver’s side, which was much slower than normal because he hadn’t had a chance to recover from the attack. I wondered what kind of damage had been done, but I was glad he was able to move albeit slowly. Owen kept his gun drawn until Dean was sitting down and ready.

The man shot at us again. The bullet made a ping noise when it hit the SUV. Sienna and I both screamed. She ducked down and I looked Ryan over to make sure he hadn’t been hit. I sucked in air when I heard the bullet whiz out of Owen’s gun. I’m not sure why it had surprised me that he shot back. He was protecting us, and I’ve known for months that something like this could happen. I guess I never really thought about why or how it would happen. We’d probably been lucky it took this long for something like this to happen. But other than the guns being used to kill those horrible dogs, I never actually imagined them being used on a real live person. I looked out the window and saw both men lying on the ground.

“Owen you hit him!” I yelled at him from inside the SUV.

“I know,” he said, his voice lacking any emotion as he jumped inside the SUV. “GO!” he ordered, and Dean sped off down the highway driving way too fast. Leaving the two men behind. One that we had killed, or injured and left for dead, or worse, left for the dogs.

“We have to go back!” I said feeling confused and conflicted. “We need to help them, we can’t just let them die!”

Owen turned around looking at me like I was crazy, and maybe I was, at least temporarily, but it all felt wrong. “He was shooting at us Ros, we can’t go back and put ourselves back into that kind of danger! Don’t be stupid! You want Ryan to get shot through the side panel? Or someone through the window? Jesus Christ Ros, pull it together!”

“We can’t just let people die,” I said. I couldn’t get my feelings in check. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it. Everything I was feeling was a jumbled mess. I just knew that killing people was wrong, but obviously it wouldn’t have been right to put any of us in danger either.

“We can and we will, drive Dean,” Owen demanded, even though Dean had absolutely no intention of not continuing to drive away from the men.

“Ros you’re in shock or something,” Dean said glancing back at me.

“I’m not in shock,” I said.

“Well, you sure aren’t thinking clearly,” Owen added.

We drove in silence for miles and miles and miles. I waited for someone to freak out like I was freaking out on the inside but it didn’t happen. Owen may have just killed a living, breathing human being and we were all accomplices for helping him. There was no longer any policemen enforcing any kind of laws. Did it really matter Owen had defended us? We had been in danger, but I was having trouble finding within myself that place that believed that this was the right way. I would have to carry this with me the rest of my life. That we hadn’t gone back, that I just let someone die. But another part of me thought I was being ridiculous, he was shooting at us, and he could have killed any one of us. Owen did the right thing, I had to suck it up, who knows maybe one day I would have to pull that trigger myself… killing one to save another. Perhaps that part of me was right, it’s just that shooting and possibly killing someone was a pretty big thing. It was hard for me to just shrug off.