Barren Waters - The Complete Novel: (A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Survival) (24 page)

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, if we’re going to wait, then let’s at least make the best of it.” Gesturing over her shoulder she added, “We may as well see what supplies we can find around here.”

He nodded and joined her to stand over Seth.

“Will he be all right?” she whispered.

“I don’t know Sam. We’ve got to get him to drink fluids laced with antibiotics if we can. We’ll figure it out somehow. He’s strong. Sleep and medicine is the best thing for him now. Let his body fight the infection in peace. We’ll give him the best tools we can, but the rest is up to him.”

She turned to him. “So what did you think of? What was your trigger?”

He lifted his shoulders. “Mom. Same as you. Who else? As a boy she was one of the first triggers I ever had and I have a strong feeling she’ll be the last.” He set his arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “It feels right that I’ve come full circle. It’s only fitting. She was the one who set me in motion so many years ago. It was a night I’ll never forget.”

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The helicopter had landed at McGhee Tyson Airport some forty-five minutes ago and Liam and his family were now stuck in a long line of traffic. Anxious, restless, and eager to once again set foot in their cabin, he peered at the entrance to Henley Street Bridge. They’d been forced to take a circuitous route back home, one that had taken them nearly forty miles off course. The Tennessee landscape was bright with the orange light of a multitude of roaring fires and staccato bursts of gunfire rang out in the distance in a way that set his teeth on edge. This was it. Liam was done. God willing—if they could just make it back to the cabin, he’d never venture far from it again. Life as he’d known it was over. The country was in shambles. Those who had prepared were already tucked away in their shelters. Those who hadn’t the means were left to suffer the elements. And those, of course, who were predatory in nature, were busy inducing chaos and violence.

The
Nomad
had docked at a San Francisco pier just yesterday, and Liam had demanded that the military immediately fly them to Arnold Air Force Base, and from there, to McGhee Tyson by helicopter where his jeep waited. He and Olivia had said their goodbyes to the ocean, and with hearts heavy, had turned from her glistening surface and flown inland. Though the departure was tearful and gut wrenching at first, they both now longed for the comforts of home.

She flinched beside him as a burst of gunfire crackled from the distance.

“Nobody’s moving, Liam. This bridge is completely gridlocked.”

He strained to see and gave up, switched off the car, and peered through the darkness at his sleeping son. Jeremy was curled under a blanket in the backseat, knees drawn to his chest, face cloaked in shadow. Liam sighed and turned to his wife.

“You’re right. Might as well conserve a little gas.”

He opened his door, stood on the ledge of the SUV, and strained on the tips of his toes. It wasn’t a normal gridlock, wasn’t just that cars were lined bumper-to-bumper across the bridge. It was utter bedlam. The bridge was packed solid. Cars had strayed from the painted lines that marked lanes, defiantly broken free of polite constraints, and encroached into the personal space of others. They’d crawled across the expanse of the bridge in haphazard stops and starts until there was nowhere left for any of them to go. The frames of some of the cars were lifted and balanced precariously against the lip of the bridge while others were wedged and half-turned around by those who’d maniacally floored the gas in an effort to push through. Above some of the vehicles, steam rose in billowing clouds. Black smoke hissed and curled from the tailpipes of a multitude of others. Liam heard a sudden scream and gasped as a military-grade Hummer rolled over the tops of several compact cars. He ducked his head back into the car.

“We’ll never get through here, Liv. We have to turn around.”

She twisted in her seat, peered back the way they’d come. “Turn around and go where? We’re as trapped as they are.”

She was right. He regarded the rows of cars that stretched behind them and tried to think of a way to get them out of this. His wife’s voice pulled his attention back to the dark car.

“Who cares, Liam?” he heard her call out. “What does it matter how long we have to sit here? We’re fine where we are for now. We have food, water, all the time in the world. Let’s just wait it out. At some point people have to move. Right?”

He stood on his tiptoes again and tried to scrutinize vague shapes in the distance. Something was going on up there. The vehicles had been moving before. Slow—yes—but at least they’d been moving. Unlike now. Things had been ground to a complete halt. Dark shapes clustered at the mouth of the opposite end of the bridge, but it was too far for him to make anything out clearly.

“I don’t know,” he whispered more to himself. “I’m not so sure we’ll ever get through.” He slipped back into the jeep, shut the door as quietly as he could, and dropped his gaze to his hands. All this planning. All this preparation. What if it was all for nothing? What if he couldn’t get them back to where they’d started?

“Stop worrying,” Olivia offered as she easily read his thoughts. “We’ll get there. Have a little bit of faith.”

“Faith?” he scoffed. “We just left an ocean that’s become a landfill and you want me to have faith?”

“Yeah, a little,” she admonished and motioned over her shoulder. “Maybe a little for him?”

Turning from her in silence, he peered out the window into the darkness. The Garbage Patch had been rough on him and he still wasn’t sure how to reassemble the pieces of himself that had scattered—or where he might find them for that matter. Since they’d left, a melancholic feeling had taken root in his belly, bloomed, and now threatened to overtake him. Truthfully, he was having a difficult time shaking it off. Olivia seemed less affected or perhaps she was just hiding her feelings better. But not him. He’d always trended a bit toward depression, always hovered at the darker edges of life. He was the one at the party who always wished he were somewhere else. He was the one who’d always faked the smile, forced the laugh, and checked his watch. Maybe that was why he’d so easily prepared for this eventuality in the first place—his lack of faith. Swinging his gaze to the line of cars in front of him, he startled as a bent shape materialized and detached from the darkness. Olivia sat up and leaned forward, body rigid, hands clenched tight to the armrests.

“Did you see that?”

Liam stared, didn’t answer, and tried to make sense of the tangle of shapes. Again the shadow moved, and he saw a lone figure scamper around the back wheel of the Ford Raptor in front of them.

“Don’t move,” he whispered to Olivia and they watched as another man emerged from the shadows. He crept toward the driver’s-side door handle and hovered in silence. In unison and quite suddenly, the two men converged on the vehicle. Liam moved for his gun. Olivia stiffened.

“Don’t get involved,” she hissed. “You don’t know what they intend to do.“

“I know exactly what they intent to do. They intend to take that man’s truck.”

Liam watched and tensed as the man at the driver’s-side attempted to wrench open the door. He failed, lifted the butt of his gun, and slammed it into the window. Glass shattered and the gunman stepped up on the ledge of the truck, reached in, and fumbled at the lock on the interior. Liam felt frozen as the scene played out before him. God, how he was so damn sick of all of this shit—sick of the desperation, sick of the people. Sick of watching them take from others instead of finding ways to provide for themselves. Sick of the violence, sick of the savagery, sick of the profound disrespect. So sick of it all that he feared he might burst. His fingers clenched the steering wheel and he watched the men’s arms struggling through the window. Clearly the driver wasn’t giving in easily, but he was going to need help if the second man engaged.

Don’t just sit here,
Liam thought suddenly.
Pull the trigger
!

He glanced at his wife and realized he
did
want to get involved. He
did
want to help. He was tired of being a spectator; tired of sitting on the bench and watching others play the game and lose. All the anger and disappointment he’d suffered at the Garbage Patch surged within him and he thrust open his door just as the owner of the Raptor pushed open his own. Startled by the sudden inertia, the thief lost his grip and sailed backward in the air. He landed hard on his back, righted himself, and dropped into a low crouch. Raising the gun on the car owner he issued a low threat.

“We’re taking the truck.”

The owner tumbled from the vehicle and advanced on the gunman. “I’ll be damned if I let you do that, you son of a bitch.”

“Liam!” Olivia repeated with a hiss as he slid off his seat and braced his hands against the door. “No! Don’t get involved!”

Funny she should say that, he thought with a smirk. Had she chosen not to get involved in that incident three years ago, they wouldn’t have Jeremy now. Pushing her protests to the back of his mind, he renewed his focus on the scene before him. Eyes trained on the dueling two men, Liam realized he’d forgotten the third till a scream pierced the air. From nowhere, the man materialized, rounded the front bumper and stomped toward his partner dragging a small girl in tow. Liam’s heart pinched when he saw her sobbing mother following close at his heels.

This wasn’t going to end well.

The gunman smiled and returned his gaze to the driver. “See? Like I said, we’re taking the truck.”

As if in answer, the gunman’s partner lifted the little girl and held her aloft. Her legs pumped furiously, as if she pedaled an invisible bicycle, her tiny fists clenched and beating at empty air. Liam stepped from the safety of the alcove of the door and lifted his gun.

“Let them have the truck,” he advised its owner sagely. “It’s not worth it.” The little girl squirmed in the man’s arms, let out a squeal, and Liam issued a threat of his own. “Drop the girl and take the truck. Do neither and I’ll shoot you both.”

Surprisingly, the threat sounded stronger than Liam felt. The man’s wife dropped to her knees and sobbed, and Liam advanced another step.

“I said leave the girl. Take the truck. We won’t stop you.”

The moment hung in the air. The eyes of the child’s father darted from the barrel of Liam’s gun to the barrel of the one pressed against his daughter’s temple. “Please,” he whispered faintly. “Just go. Take the truck. Just set her down and go. Take whatever you want. Please, just leave her be.”

The gunmen froze with indecision and Liam’s heart leapt into his throat. Clearly the men were torn. They didn’t care anything about the child, probably found her more of a nuisance than anything else, but they also knew that once they set her down, they’d lose valuable leverage. Liam would have a clear shot and they would lose their escape route. Liam ground his molars. As much as he hated to disarm himself, he had little choice. He knew these men wouldn’t leave without this truck, and without some type of assurance, they’d surely take the child and dump her somewhere in the distance. Slowly he lowered his weapon, set it on the pavement and lifted his hands in the air.

“There. You’re free to go,” he advised. He kicked the gun, and with stomach clenched, watched it spin away from his toe. “Go. I won’t move for it.”

The man with the child sneered. “You’re damn right you won’t.”

The man edged closer, roughly swung the girl under his arm, and scrambled for the gun. With the weapon securely wedged in the waistband of his pants, he shared a meaningful glance with his partner, and in a moment that Liam wouldn’t soon forget, reared back, and tossed the child into the air. Despite her father’s efforts to catch her, she fell hard, skidded across the pavement, and came to rest several feet from where he crouched.

Frozen seconds that felt like minutes passed in slow motion before her screams rent the air. She was okay. Thankfully. And Liam released the breath he’d been holding, grateful that she hadn’t hit her head and been knocked unconscious. As promised and beneath the threat of three guns, he remained motionless and watched as both criminals ran to the truck. They stepped up into the cabin, closed both doors with a snap, and fired up the engine. Where the hell did they think they would go? The entrance to the bridge wasn’t nearly as clogged as the bridge itself, but still. Even given the size and heft of the massive truck, Liam wasn’t sure it would make much of a difference.

In awe, he watched as the truck rammed through the crowd. The driver pushed the vehicle to its limits. He crammed through the lanes to the outer shoulder, pressed on the gas, and propelled the truck into smaller vehicles. Hearing Olivia’s door open behind him, Liam hazarded a glance in her direction. Her expression matched his own. She seemed as amazed and bewildered by the driver’s stupidity as Liam was himself. Mouth agape, her gaze was fixed on the runaway truck that careened into others as it attempted to create for itself a new path through the lanes. To save themselves, the other drivers were hastily restarting their cars and trying to give the truck as much latitude as they could manage, but heedless to all and considerate of none, the Raptor surged forward till it reached the mouth of the bridge. There, it butted into a small opening between cars then hoisted atop a small Camry and barreled over its occupants. Screams burst into the night as the onlookers beheld the madness, and Liam began to succumb to a debilitating sense of dread. He wouldn’t be the only person with a gun. Not in this crowd. Someone was likely to stop this madness. And fast.

Olivia had broken her trance and run to the woman and her child. Bent over them both, she spoke soft words that Liam couldn’t hear. He made his way over to help the driver. The man was dusting his trousers and staring after his truck with wonder.

“All be damned,” he muttered. “Would you believe that? Look at him go.”

The two men stood shoulder-to-shoulder and watched as the truck crunched past the Camry and attempted to climb the rear end of an Accord.

“Best to let him go,” Liam said. “We can take you wherever you’re trying to get to.”

The man extended a hand and answered, “Name’s Tom. I can’t thank you enough for this, but I don’t think we’re going much of anywhere tonight.”