Pilgrimage_A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Story Read online

  He knew he was emerging from this post-apocalyptic cocoon a changed man. He was stronger, more decisive, clear of purpose. There was something primal about him.

  “You better be, Rock.” She kissed him gently on the lips. “Or I’ll kill you.”

  The door to the bedroom swung open and Max rumbled into the room. He shielded his eyes when he saw the affection his parents were sharing.

  “What’s up, Max?” James waved over his mop-haired son, inviting him to join a group hug.

  “Nothing.” Max shook his head and kept his distance. “I just got tired of playing with the dog. He wanted to go out and kept pawing at the back door. Boring.”

  “Where’s your sister?” asked Leigh, her voice suddenly filled with worry. “You didn’t leave her outside, did you?”

  “No, Mom,” said Max. “She’s back in the kitchen, eating some of the disgusting astronaut ice cream. I can’t believe she actually likes it.”

  “Okay.” Leigh relaxed. “Good. So what’s up?”

  “I’m going with Dad.” Max was matter-of-fact. “Right, Dad?”

  “Who told you that?” Leigh’s eyes narrowed as she pulled away from James.

  “Dad.”

  Leigh’s attention snapped back to her husband. “Oh really?”

  “It’s okay,” James assured her. “We’re just doing surveillance. We’re not doing anything dangerous.”

  “Since when is anything not dangerous, Rock?” Leigh protested. “I don’t like the idea of it.”

  “Trust me, Leigh.” James put his hands on her shoulders. “We’ll be okay. If we see anything suspicious, I’ll send him inside immediately. Okay?”

  Leigh looked at her husband and then at her son, his hands grasped in prayer. “Fine,” she relented.

  “Yes!” Max curled his hands into fists and pumped them in the air. “When do we go?”

  “A few minutes,” James said. “It’s you, me, and Sonny.”

  “Cool.” Max offered his dad a high five and then spun to bolt downstairs. “See you downstairs.”

  “He needs a little time with me, Leigh,” James explained, pulling her into his chest. “He’s been a trooper.”

  “I worry about him,” said Leigh, “and Sloane.”

  “I know.” James palmed his hand on the back of her head, tousling her hair. “Life is going to be different.”

  “It’s not just that,” Leigh explained. “I worry about what they’ve seen, what they’ve experienced. It would be enough for a child to have survived a car wreck, a tsunami and homicidal pirates in the same day, but add all of the stuff that’s happened since then…”

  “Kids are resilient,” James offered, gently resting his chin on Leigh’s head. “They seem okay at the moment.”

  “That’s what bothers me, I guess,” she countered. “They shouldn’t be okay. They should be curled up in the fetal position, their knees pulled to their chests, rocking back and forth in a corner.”

  “That’s how I feel,” James joked.

  “It’s not funny.” Leigh pulled away. “I’m serious. Long after our world returns to some sense of normalcy, if and when that happens, are kids are going to be scarred, Rock. Sloane can’t rationalize what’s happening. Max is probably compartmentalizing it, avoiding the emotion of it.”

  “I don’t—”

  “No.” Leigh folded her arms across her chest. “Wait a minute. Let me finish. He’s twelve and he’s excited about doing surveillance with his dad, trying to keep tabs on some homicidal squatters who’ve stolen our house and killed our neighbor!”

  “Would you rather him curl up?” James argued, trying to keep his voice low. “Would you be happier if he were a blubbering, incoherent mess?”

  “No.”

  “Then do what you can to comfort him,” counseled James. “Ask him questions. Get him to open up. Do the same with Sloane. We can’t control what’s happened, whether it’s an asteroid or an EMP. We can’t control the outside world. It’ll collapse and rebuild itself. All we can do is…maintain our sanity.”

  Leigh pulled her hands to her face, cupping them over her nose and mouth, and fell into her husband’s arms. She sobbed quietly as he held her. It was just the second time she’d cried since the event. The first was as a man shoved a pistol into her husband’s mouth and promised to execute her entire family.

  “We’ll be okay,” James promised her, trying to convince himself.

  CHAPTER 61

  EVENT +1 Week, 3 Days, 11:41 Hours

  University Park, Maryland

  Temporary Recovery Zone 5

  Despite the trees blocking the line of sight to the Rockwells’ front door, Sonny’s roof was as good a spot as any to keep an eye on the squatters. The gables on the second-floor windows provided good cover, as did the sun. On a cloudless, late-summer afternoon, it shone directly into the Rockwells’ west-facing house. There was a slight chill from the northerly breeze blowing through the trees.

  They’d been on the roof for more than an hour. Armed with two pairs of binoculars and a rifle scope, they’d seen no movement from inside their home or in their front yard.

  “How long are we up here?” Max’s initial excitement had long since melted into the hot composite shingles. “I mean, if we don’t see anything?”

  “Until sundown,” said Sonny. “Then Neil and Stuart take a shift.”

  James pulled the scope back to his eye and focused it through the foliage toward his front stoop. He scanned to the right and then swept back to the left, slowly checking for any signs of movement, any opportunity to get a good look at the—

  “Dad!” Max said, pointing toward their driveway. “There!”

  James jerked the scope to the right and moved it in small tight circles until he saw her. A woman with long dark hair, wearing a white T-shirt and cutoff jean shorts, was leaning against the back of the Camaro.

  She was smoking a cigarette, or maybe something else, James thought. She took too long a drag for it to be a Marlboro. The woman was barefoot and was scratching her cheek with her free hand.

  “Good eyes, Max,” James commended his son. “You see her, Sonny?”

  “I do.” Sonny’s eyes were pressed against his binoculars. “She’s smoking a joint.”

  The woman shifted against the Camaro, crossing one leg in front of the other. She ran her finger through her hair and then took another hit, closing her eyes as she held in the smoke. She exhaled, blowing out a trail of smoke, which she fanned from her face.

  “I’m assuming that’s the one who helped kill Jack and Lee Pollock?” James kept his eye on her, the way she fidgeted as she stood there. She was an addict. No doubt.

  “That’s her,” said Sonny. “No doubt. She’s wearing the same clothing. Her hair’s the same. I know that’s her.”

  “So we’re still at three adults and a couple of kids, then?” asked James.

  “As far as we know.” Sonny nodded. “We haven’t seen anybody else.”

  “Is she the wife of one of the men?” asked James, noticing a thin silver-colored band on her wedding finger.

  “We guess so,” said Sonny. “There’s no way to know. She might belong to both of them.”

  “Or both of them might belong to her,” James joked. “She looks pretty hardened.”

  “She has to be,” Sonny explained. “She dragged Lee Pollock into the yard herself. No remorse. She even stepped on her body and kicked it as—”

  “I gotcha,” said James, nodding over at Max. His son’s eyes were wide, as were his ears.

  “Oh.” Sonny blushed. “Sorry. I forget sometimes. Days of being a cop, you know.”

  “It’s okay.” James patted Sonny on the back. “He’s probably been through worse these past two weeks than you could describe to him.”

  “Oh great!” Sonny sighed, the binoculars still at his face. He wasn’t looking at the woman. His attention was elsewhere.

  “What?” asked Max.

  “Albert got out of the house,” he
said, pointing to the grass on the center island of the cul-de-sac.

  “You gonna get him?” James offered, watching the dog waddle through the grass island in the center of the cul-de-sac. Albert was sniffing around, looking for a place to lift his leg.

  “Not yet.” Sonny shook his head. “He’ll do his business and come back.”

  James looked at the dog through his scope and then back at the woman. She wasn’t leaning on the car anymore. She was standing at the end of the driveway, her attention toward the center island. She squatted and clapped. Her lips were pursed, as if whistling. James couldn’t hear anything, however, over the gusts of wind. He felt goose bumps pop on his arms and neck. But he sensed it wasn’t from the chill. Something bad was happening. He shot Sonny a look.

  Sonny pulled his eyes from the binoculars and bit his lower lip. He scratched his head and then rubbed the back of his neck.

  “I don’t like this,” he said. “But I’m not going over there, exposing myself to them. They already know I saw them kill Jack Pollock.”

  Albert was in view, now just a few feet from the end of the driveway. The woman was working hard to call him toward her, to get him close enough to pet him. The dog was wary. He moved toward her, but cautiously. He’d take a couple of steps, wag his tail and sniff the air, and then he’d inch closer.

  The dog took another step to the woman before turning back to look at his owner. His tail wagged and he started back to Sonny when the woman called him or whistled or did something that gained Albert’s attention.

  He reached the edge of the driveway and the woman knelt down, offering the back of her hand for Albert to sniff.

  The woman slipped her fingers inside Albert’s collar. He responded to her at first, licking her hand and wagging his nub of a tail. But something caught his attention and he tried to pull away. Albert strained against his collar to turn around, but the woman strengthened her grip and looked up, farther down the street.

  James pulled the scope away from his eye and leaned forward, looking into the street between the front of Sonny’s house and the center island. He nearly jumped from the roof when he saw what had captured their attention; Sloane was alone, walking toward her house, and Albert, and the homicidal woman.

  CHAPTER 62

  EVENT +1 Week, 3 Days, 11:50 Hours

  University Park, Maryland

  Temporary Recovery Zone 5

  James threw open the window and hurdled the sill into the house. He raced down the hall, almost stumbling over his feet as he bounded down the stairs and out the front door.

  He sprinted into the street and looked east toward his house. Sloane was at the end of the driveway, petting Albert. The woman’s free hand was on his daughter’s shoulder, her eyes on Sloane until she glanced up to see James hurriedly moving toward her.

  A smile wormed its way across her thin, cracked lips as James broke his stride just feet from the end of the driveway. She kept her hand on Sloane’s shoulder, gripping it with her fingers.

  “Sloane,” James huffed, his heart pounding against his chest. His lungs burned from the quick dash, still recovering from the infection. “Sloane!” he barked. “Come here, please!”

  “Hi, Daddy.” Sloane spun around, freeing herself from the woman’s touch. “I came to get Albert. He got out.”

  “Come here, Sloane.” James spoke to his daughter, but his eyes were on the meth fiend in front of him. The picked scabs on her face and neck were giveaways, if the gaunt, witchlike structure of her face wasn’t enough to betray her demons.

  “But, Daddy.” The woman giggled in a throaty, raspy voice. “We were just having some girl talk.”

  James took a step forward and gently pulled Sloane to his side. He glared at the woman but said nothing.

  “Seems you got a little party over there,” the woman said, gripping Albert’s collar as he struggled against it. “And you ain’t invited us.”

  “Go home, Sloane,” James said, gently nudging his daughter toward Sonny’s house. He didn’t notice Sonny, Leigh, Max, and the Gilberts were on the street and nearing the island.

  Sloane obliged and skipped obliviously back to her mother, who stepped from the crowd to grab her daughter’s hand and lead her back inside the house. Max and Susan Gilbert followed them. Stuart Gilbert stayed on the street with Sonny.

  “We was just talkin’, Daddy,” she twanged. “Ain’t no cause to be rude, now.”

  “Who’s us?” James asked.

  The woman stood from her crouch and stuck out her chin, letting go of Albert after a final yank that forced a yelp from the affable dog. He shook off the choke and trotted back to Sonny, and the woman took a step toward James and stuck her thumbs into her pockets. She gurgled a laugh and smacked her lips.

  “I asked you a question.” James could feel the tension in his neck. “Who is us?”

  “I was talkin’ to your girl there.” She nodded over James’s shoulder, toward Sonny’s house. “She’s a real cutie. She told me you used to live here.”

  James choked back the urge to attack the woman and waterboard the information out of her. But he clenched his jaw and didn’t respond.

  “I can tell by the fire in your eyes that’s the truth,” she quipped. “Thank you for leavin’ it in such fine shape. I mean to say it’s first class.” She narrowed her eyes. The smile disappeared. “Love what your wife has done with the place.”

  “Don’t get comfortable,” James said.

  “I was just gonna say the same thing to y’all.” Her drawl dripped with smug condescension. “We love us some parties.” The woman was a caricature of herself, drawn from some C-rated Steven Seagal movie and perfectly cast.

  The woman’s eyes widened again and she laughed, a phlegm-coated, smoker’s laugh. She winked at James and turned around, swinging her nonexistent hips as she walked back to the house. Peeking out from her waistband, framed by a green-inked winged tramp-stamp, was the grip of a nine-millimeter handgun. It was black with a silver inlay, which caught the sunlight as she moved. The woman reached the stoop and turned.

  “Finders, keepers,” she said, blowing a kiss. “Ain’t that right, Rock?”

  James stood at the end of the driveway, his driveway, dumfounded. He wanted to rush the woman, knock her through the door and use the gun against her and everyone inside. She’d managed to push every last one of his buttons. But he did nothing. He said nothing. Instead he watched her open the door to his family’s home and disappear inside.

  James took a last survey of the house before he left, taking note of the two boys peeking through Sloane’s window. The older was a teenager, James guessed, maybe thirteen or fourteen. The other was half his size. He was a six- or seven-year-old.

  James waved at the boys, offered a smile, and walked back to Sonny’s house, meeting Sonny and Stuart at the island.

  “What in the world was that?” Stuart asked. “What did she say?”

  “She threatened us,” James said, walking swiftly past his two neighbors as they quickened their pace to keep up.

  “They’re not afraid of us,” Stuart reasoned.

  James stopped short at the curb in front of Sonny’s house and looked back at his house. Then he turned to Stuart and said without any hint of emotion, “They should be.”

  CHAPTER 63

  EVENT +1 Week, 3 Days, 12:30 Hours

  University Park, Maryland

  Temporary Recovery Zone 5

  While Leigh berated herself for letting Sloane slip out of the house, James tried to ascertain exactly what his daughter revealed to the enemy. He sat on the floor next to the kitchen table while Sloane stuck her nose against Albert’s, baiting him to slather her face with kisses.

  “Sloane,” James said, his hand on the small of her back, “tell me again what the woman asked you.”

  “She told me how pretty I am and how much she loved dogs.” Sloane pecked at Albert. He snorted. “And then she asked me how many people were at our party.”

  “And you
told her what?” James rubbed her back, trying to sound more curious than interrogatory. “What did you tell her about our party?”

  “I told her it wasn’t a party.” Sloane turned to look at her dad, and Albert snuck a disgusting lick across the side of her face. “Alllberrt!” She giggled.

  “What did you tell her it was?”

  “A sleepover.” Sloane looked over to her dad. “I heard you talking about it. You said everyone was staying here.”

  “You told her that?” James swallowed hard.

  “No, Dad.” She rolled her eyes. “I told her we were having a sleepover because they were in our house. That was it. I didn’t say anything about a party. The lady said that.”

  “What did you think of that lady?” James asked the question in the wake of a sigh of relief.

  “She was scary.” Her brows arched, her eyes narrowed. “She was like a witch or something. But I didn’t want her to know she scared me. So I acted like Momma and pretended everything was okay.”

  From the mouths of babes…

  James reached over and hugged his daughter and pecked her forehead with a kiss. “Play with the dog, Sloane.” He smiled and pushed himself up.

  Sonny crossed the family room, his lips pursed, the deep line running across his forehead more evident than James remembered it. He put his hands on his hips expectantly.

  “She didn’t give anything away,” James explained. “She told them we were staying here. But they may have already known that. The woman recognized me.”

  “How?”

  “Family pictures probably,” James guessed. “There are a bunch of them on the refrigerator. She probably recognized Sloane before I even walked over there.”

  “Does this change anything?” Sonny asked. “Do we need to move up the timetable?”

  “I don’t think so.” James scratched the growing, uncomfortable beard on his neck. “The Woods will be here in a couple of hours. Then the Whistlers once it’s dark. I think we keep an eye on the neighborhood and stick with what we’ve got.”