Life After: Episode 4 (A Serial Novel) (2 page)

He knew that this man inadvertently saved his life by killing
Wesley. The horrid uniform Clark wore indeed
saved his life, but it wouldn’t save the lives of the others. If he didn’t stop
this man from discovering them, then they would die.

He looked down and saw a baseball on the ground. He picked it up
and threw it towards the front of the store. The ball crashed into something
and startled the Imperial soldier who was almost near the back of store.

Clark pulled back before the man
turned around. He heard his footsteps grow closer as he stepped backward to
conceal himself in the next isle. He peered out and saw the soldier exit the
isle and walk towards the front of the store. He crept behind the man and
lifted his baseball bat.

The soldier scanned to his right and left, but did not hear Clark behind him, nor did he bother to turn around.

Closer.

Clark raised the bat as his
heart pounded.

Closer.

He readied the bat and held his breath.

Five steps away.

Before Clark could swing the bat, the man stopped abruptly and slammed
the butt end of his rifle into Clark’s chest.

Clark fell backward and heard
his bat hit the linoleum floor below. Before he could gain his equilibrium, the
man sweep-kicked Clark, causing him to lose
his footing and tumble to the ground, hitting the back of his head on the cold,
hard floor.

Everything went black for a moment, but in a few seconds, Clark opened his eyes and saw the man standing above him.

“You know,” the man said, “I could just shoot you in the head and
kill you instantly, but then you wouldn’t suffer…”

Clark tried to move, but the man
kicked him in the side.

“I want you to feel the pain you caused our country by being a
traitor.”

He kicked Clark a second time before aiming his gun at Clark’s stomach.

Clark anticipated the horrible
pain of a bullet ripping through his abdomen. We winced when he heard a loud
thud come from behind the man’s head. He looked in amazement at the man, whose
eyes rolled up into his head as he dropped his gun and fell towards Clark.

Clark rolled to his left to
avoid being hit by the man’s body. He looked up and saw Rebecca standing over
him, baseball bat in hand. “Now we’re even,” she said.

Rebecca reached down and grabbed Clark’s
hand, helping him up. He stood over the soldier and saw a small stream of blood
move slowly across the ground.

“Nice work,” he said to Rebecca. He bent down and picked up the
rifle. Hesitantly, he placed his hand on the man’s neck to check for a pulse,
but none could be felt.

He searched the body and found over a dozen food bars, a straw
water filtration device, and a few more rounds for the rifle. He rose and
scanned his surroundings. The utter silence in the store was enough to convince
him that they were alone. Still, he listened intently for footsteps, but none
could be heard.

“Let’s get back to the others,” Rebecca said.

Clark nodded and took his first
steps towards the back of the store. They reached the door to the stock room in
less than a minute. Clark opened the door and
whispered to the group, “Let’s go.” He pointed to the bay door. “We need to get
out of here before they come looking for their buddy.”

He heard rustling in the darkness and in a few seconds, saw
Charles emerge.

“Did they find another way into the store?” Charles asked.

“Yeah,” Clark said.

“And?”

Rebecca smiled. “I took care of him.”

* * *

Ten minutes of searching revealed many useful supplies.
Clark found a backpack in one of the isles and
began filling it with items he found along the way. The most urgent were first
aid supplies for Tyler’s
wound. They also found a striker along with several packages of flint, a
flashlight and several packages of batteries, a hunting knife in a leather
sheath, and several earth tone ponchos were found in the sporting goods
section. They also found a compound bow and a few packages of arrows. Clark knew most people would overlook such items, as
guns, ammunition, food, and water were of the greatest concern. They checked
the front of the store but all of the candy displays were picked clean. No
other food could be found.

Clark stepped to the front of
the store and looked out through the glass. The parking lot was still empty,
though he knew they couldn’t wait around too long. Whoever was standing guard
at the other side of the store was likely to check things out soon enough.

“Wait,” Rebecca said. “I should work on Tyler’s wound before we leave.”

“There’s no time,” Clark said.
“We need to get to the woods. It will be dark soon.”

Rebecca gave a hesitant look. “Fine,” she said. “But once we get
to the woods…”

Clark walked towards the broken
store window at the front of the building. He stepped through a gaping hole in
the glass and turned around. “Careful,” he said.

Clark surveyed the parking lot.
Nobody was in sight. One at a time, they stepped through with Clark
leading the way.

Clark continued to check all
around them as they walked. Rebecca walked behind him, helping Tyler along. Charles and Thomas followed
behind Rebecca, and kept an eye out behind them, in case any Imperials
attempted to launch a surprise attack.

In less than five minutes, they found the entrance to a wooded
trail. They walked up a steep incline to return to the relative safety of the
forest. The sun had nearly set by the time they walked a half mile off the
trail to clear a place to camp for the night. Before complete darkness overtook
them, Clark and Rebecca worked on Tyler’s
wound. They found that the bullet had not penetrated his leg, but merely grazed
him. Rebecca dressed the wound to the best of her ability with the aid of the
flashlight.

Darkness set in quickly and summoned the creatures of the night.
Insects chirped their rhythmic tune, echoing back and forth before joining in a
chorus of a thousand noises clustered as one.

“I’ll stand guard first,” Charles said to Clark.
“You need your rest.”

“Thanks,” Clark said, turning
off the flashlight and laying on the cold ground. He drifted off into
unconsciousness quickly.

After a night of dreamless sleep, Clark
opened his eyes and stared groggily into the forest. The sun was in the midst
of rising above the horizon, and the forest was growing brighter by the second.

As his vision cleared, he heard Charles’ voice: “By train?”

Clark lay still as he heard
Rebecca’s reply.
“Yeah.
I remember standing on that
railroad depot platform with my mother and brother. We were told to arrive at
the depot in Oswego to be transported to see my father, who we were told was
arrested in Pennsylvania. When we asked why we couldn’t drive, they said that
most of the roads were closed because of the risk of roadside bombs being set
by terrorists. All airports were closed as well. The only way would be by rail.
Looking back, we were so naïve, but we were told this by local police officers.
We believed them because growing up, were we always told to be respectful and
listen to authority figures.”

There was a slight break in her speech as she sobbed lightly.
Then she continued in a softer tone. “I saw a lot of my neighbors there before
the train rolled in. When it finally came, their look of disbelief matched ours
as the endless train passed through. We saw the cattle cars stuffed with people
pass by us until the train stopped, and we saw a few empty cars in front of us.
Word had gotten to us that the station was circled by troops; otherwise, we
would have left to find another way to see my father. We were stuck, at the
hands of the soldiers who pushed us onto the empty cattle cars. It was like a
scene out of a nightmare as we were squeezed in. Children and babies cried as
men and women shouted. It was of no use. They closed the doors and locked us
inside. We were trapped, nearly one hundred of us in that sweltering car.”

Clark sat up and looked at Rebecca as the tears poured down her
face. She looked at him and then back at Charles.

“Go on,” Charles said.

“It was so crowded that everyone stood, pressed against one
another. A few of the elderly were able to sit on the ground beneath them, but
there wasn’t enough room that they could lay down. There was a hole in the
floor near the corner in which we stood. At first we didn’t realize its
purpose, but after about two hours, it became apparent that it gave us the only
means to relieve ourselves in a somewhat sanitary way. Some people couldn’t
make it to the hole in time. After four hours, the smell was unbearable. But
there we were, still unsure of when the trip would be over. Unsure of where we
would eventually arrive. As we rode into the night, the atmosphere in the car
grew worse and worse. Fighting broke out as the occupants all vied for every
square inch they could. All sense of community amongst the neighbors in the car
slowly deteriorated over the night until chaos broke out in the sea of doctors,
accountants, teachers, businessmen, children, the elderly, and so forth…”

“My God,” Charles said, his face displaying pure dread as the
story unfolded.

Rebecca continued as the sun moved farther away from the horizon,
illuminating their camping spot. “A doctor and his wife, who I believe was a
nurse, finally were able to calm mostly everyone down. They helped the sick and
weak, though there was little light for them to work by, even in the middle of
the day. The guards at the next station didn’t give us any food or water. They
ignored our cries as the train rolled out and we continued on. Many people
moaned from hunger and thirst and horrible ailments. On the third day, in the
middle of the afternoon, we stopped at another station. A guard came to our car
and told us he would bring three buckets of water if we surrendered all of our
wallets, watches, and jewelry. Little persuasion was needed for everyone to
empty their pockets and strip their weak bodies of any jewels and valuables.
The water was passed around, but for nearly one hundred souls, three buckets
didn’t allow for more than a couple sips per person. That was the first and
last of the water we had access to. That night, there were many people
tormented by illnesses. Several people were vomiting into the hole in the
corner. A few had diarrhea. Some were delirious with fevers. By the fourth day,
we had our first death: an old man suffered a heart attack. At the next
station, we tried to tell the guards about the corpse, but they ignored us. As
we continued on, the bodies piled up and the smell…oh my God, the smell was
worse than before. Then…” Rebecca began to shake as she continued with a broken
voice. “…then on the fourth day, my mother passed out. She had complained of a
headache and fever the previous day, but there was nothing we could do to help
her. The car was sweltering and we couldn’t wake her. The doctor eventually
came to her aid, but it was too late…”

Clark saw Rebecca’s face now. Tears dripped down her cheeks and
passed by her parched lips.

“I’m so sorry,” Clark said.

Rebecca lowered her head and stared at the ground. “After five
days, the living were literally sleeping on top of each other to avoid being
near the growing number of corpses. At the end of that day, we finally made it
to our destination…”

Rebecca turned and looked at Thomas, who rubbed his eyes as he
sat up. “Wake up, Tyler,” he said.

Charles looked at Tyler, who lay in the fetal position on the
ground. “How’s your leg?”

Tyler rolled over and looked at the old man.
“Hurts
a lot.”

Clark helped Tyler up and they gathered their supplies. He
thought of Rebecca’s story and knew that what she experienced was being relived
by countless others across the country every day. He knew they had to move on
and find the rebel stronghold in the south. That was their only hope to one day
live in a world free from the evil that now ruled supreme.

Clark shook his head to dispel
the horrible thoughts from his mind and instead focused on the survivors around
him. He reached into his pocket and grabbed two food bars. He handed one to
each of the boys.

“Should I split mine with you?” Thomas asked.

“No,” Clark said, pulling three
more bars from his pocket. “It’s all yours.”

Back onto the barely visible trail, Clark
kept an eye out for any movement in the woods. Fortunately, nobody was nearby.
He was glad to be able to walk in nature undisturbed by the horrors of
everything going on in the world, though he knew this bliss was only temporary,
and so he continued to scan his surroundings. They found the main trail and
walked further south as the sun worked its way up into the sky. After an hour
of walking through the thick brush, Clark spotted a fork in the trail and saw a
wooden sign with carved text and an arrow pointing to the right.

“Thank God,” Charles said.

Clark smiled when he read the sign: Appalachian Trail. His smile
quickly faded as he heard the whistle of a nearby train, likely filled to the
brim with innocent people who would soon perish at the hands of the Imperials.
He hastened his step as they started on the trail that would lead them nearly
eight hundred miles south on their journey to find the hidden rebel base in Georgia. Though
it was unlikely he could save those en route to the concentration camps, he
knew there was a chance to save millions of others from a similar fate.

# # #

About the author:

JJ Holden lives in a small cabin in the middle of nowhere.
He spends his days studying the past, enjoying the present, and pondering the
future.

Contact JJ Holden at [email protected]

For more information on this series, go to
jjholdenbooks.blogspot.com