Hope (14 page)

“Hope, we’ve got to get Hope,” Charlotte bellowed.

“You’ll thank me later, I promise.”

“Hope, we have to get her!” Charlotte began to swing wildly.

A man entered from the far end of the building and called out, “Bob, what the hell is going on?”

Bob leaned in close to Charlotte and whispered, “Look what you’ve done.”

The man walked past the girls’ room and stopped when he saw the bloody mess and Drew’s body. “What happened?”

“This little bitch, she killed him,” Bob announced.

Charlotte began to kick and hit him. “You asshole.”

The man headed for them, a look of rage on his face. “Well, well, looks like we have another contender for the fights tonight.”

“No, you got it all wrong. He did it; Bob killed Drew. They were fighting over us,” Charlotte declared.

The man stopped and gave Bob a suspicious look.

“You can’t really think I would…”

“You are kind of a shit,” the man said. “Let’s see what Tony says. You both need to come with me.”

Hope was stopped near the house. Her cries drew a small gathering of men.

Bob looked at the man, then Charlotte and then towards the group that was gathering outside the main house. He needed to act and act swiftly. “Listen, I didn’t do a damn thing. I heard screaming and came over. I found Drew lying there just like you did.”

The man took Bob by the arm and said, “Tony will decide who’s telling the truth.”

“You gotta believe me,” Bob said.

“I’ve never believed a fucking word that’s ever come out of your mouth from day one, Bob, if that’s even your name. I could tell you weren’t a chef from the first meal. Your cooking sucks.”

“This little bitch did it,” Bob pleaded.

“No, I didn’t. He killed Drew, hoping to take us,” Charlotte lied.

Panicked and afraid, Bob pushed the man away and struck out with several punches to his face.

Stunned but able to fight back, the man hit Bob with several heavy punches to his stomach.

Bob keeled over and coughed.

The man then slammed an elbow into Bob’s back, driving him to the floor.

Bob hacked and coughed. The hits had hurt, but he wasn’t out of the fight. He grabbed the man by his legs and tackled him to the floor then straddled him and began to pepper him with one punch after another.

Charlotte looked on in shock at the men fighting while simultaneously keeping a watchful eye on Hope and the group who stood encircling her.

Bob’s relentless barrage of fists knocked the man out. Exhausted but proud of his victory, he rose and looked at Charlotte. “So you’re trying to fuck me over?”

Charlotte turned to run.

Bob grabbed her by her long ponytail and yanked her back. Wrapping her hair around his hand, he slammed her against the wall and said, “You tried to fuck me over. Well, guess what? You fucked with the wrong person.” He smashed her face against the wall.

The pain was agony. She had never experienced such pain before until Bob slammed her head again. She lost consciousness just after he did it a third time.

“A leader is a dealer in hope.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte

El Centro, CA

Neal’s hand trembled as he leveled out the freshly dug dirt and patted it down. Sweat and tears dripped from his nose and chin onto the dry earth. As his hand hovered over the dirt, he picked rocks from the dirt and tossed them aside. It had to be perfect, he thought.

He paused when the shadow of a large falcon cast down. Looking up, he saw the majestic bird and smiled. “Will you watch over them?”

The falcon seamlessly coursed through the air. For it, the world was no different than it had always been. It went about its days unencumbered by the blackout that had swept the world he knew into chaos and then collapse.

Fatigue overcame him. Letting gravity work, he sat back heavily and watched the falcon coast; its dark brown feathers provided a contrast to the deep blue southern California sky. A partial grin cracked his bearded face as he continued to think about the bird and its life. He watched until the falcon soared over the neighboring houses and disappeared.

A gentle breeze washed over him and brought with it the smell of dirt. This brought him back to his reality. Neal’s reality for the past eight months had been nothing short of harrowing. He and his family had survived the initial riots and civil unrest brought on by the blackout, as it had been called. Living in the desert one hundred and eighteen miles east of San Diego gave them immunity from the large-scale troubles, but they still had their own, but none of that mattered now. The fighting, scavenging, and bare-knuckle survival he had dealt with for his family meant nothing anymore. All the work he had done to ensure they would be okay, all the preparations he had made were for naught without his wife and daughter. The question that kept plaguing him was, was it all worth going forward? What was the purpose of life if you didn’t have someone to share it with? The times were hard enough, but before he had purpose, he had them, but in an instant they were taken from him.

Using what little strength he had, he got to his feet and brushed the dirt off his sweat-dampened clothes. There was more work to be done, but he dreaded the thought. Making burial markers for his wife and daughter was something that needed to be done, so he fought the desire to ignore it.

Over and over again he replayed when the first symptoms hit them. The dizziness, followed by the slurred speech and crushing fatigue, along with body aches drove them all to their beds, each unable to help the other. Like a skipping record, he repeated, the peaches, the peaches, the damn peaches. He didn’t recall Karen or Beth complaining that they tasted bad, but he had only consumed a small amount. Was that the reason he suffered less? He didn’t have a formal diagnosis; without a professional opinion he’d never know for sure. Whatever it was that killed his family didn’t matter; it hit them all like a semi-truck going a hundred and kept going.

There were stories of people losing time when something traumatic occurred. When his mind stopped wandering, he realized twelve hours had slipped by in almost an instant.

The idea of killing himself came right away, but he paused. They needed to be buried. He couldn’t have their bodies lie; they had to be buried. He lifted his body off the ground, grabbed the shovel, and went back to shoveling.

Another three hours passed in a flash, but it was over finally. They were buried with markers at the heads of their graves. Neal looked towards the horizon to see the sun closing in on the mountains to the west. Would that be his last sunset? He turned and looked at the graves. Tears formed in his eyes and slid gently down his cheeks and into his beard.

Determined to let it all go, he walked back into the house.

Inside, he saw the culprit. Jars of unopened peaches sat where they had been last placed by Karen after finding them in the SUV. He cleared the few steps towards the table and in a rage swept the jars off the table. They shattered into a thousand pieces on the tile floor. “Arghh!” he screamed.

Vertigo hit him hard. He fell into a chair and rested his head on the table.

A rush of tears came. “Why, God, why?”

His despair gave way to anger. He lifted his weary head and screamed, “Why, God? What kind of God allows this to happen? All of the death. Why my family? Why my baby girl? What had she done? She was only eight years old! She was innocent! Damn you, God, damn you!” He stood up and raced towards his office.

The fatigue was crushing, but he made it to the desk chair and plopped down. On his desk was his Sig. He picked it up and cradled it in his hand; his thumb ran over the slide. More tears came down his face. Slowly he raised the pistol and placed it under his chin. His hands shook as he placed his index finger on the trigger. The tears were gushing from his eyes. He gazed up at the ceiling, closed his eyes, and applied pressure to the trigger.

Karen’s voice screamed in his head. The promise he had made her echoed over and over.

He kept applying pressure.

Now he could see her in his mind’s eye, lying in the bed, making him swear to live on and help others.

Tears kept streaming down his face. He thought it impossible to cry any more.
How much can someone possibly cry?

Again she came to him. He could almost feel her presence in the room. Having the feeling she was watching him do this cowardly act embarrassed him. Unable to go through with it, he lowered the pistol, looked at it and angrily tossed it away.

He made a promise and he was going to fulfill it. Looking up again, he shouted, “Fine, I won’t do it. I won’t, but there better be something greater out there. I’ll do what you wish. I’ll honor your dying wish and not take my own life, but you better be right because living seems fruitless. There’s no meaning, there’s nothing for me here, but I’ll go forth. I love you, Karen. I love you, Beth.”

Pine Valley, CA

Charlotte’s head pounded and her body felt like it had been dragged for miles because it had. After knocking her out, Bob picked Charlotte up and fled the compound. The alarm Hope had sounded provided him a greater distraction than the Friday fights.

The perimeter guard, an undisciplined knuckle dragger, left his post to go see what the commotion was all about.

The guard’s dereliction allowed Bob to escape with Charlotte. He tossed her over his shoulder and easily slipped through the fence line and down the hillside.

Many miles and hours were now in between her and Hope. What plans she thought she had yesterday were gone. In an instant it had all changed, and why? Because she had misjudged a situation and acted foolishly. How would she get back to Hope? How would she escape Bob?

“My stomach is growling,” Bob complained.

Charlotte didn’t respond. She sat in a patch of tall dry grass, with her hands bound behind her.

“You’re a stupid fucking girl, you know that? You screwed this whole thing up.”

“You told me he liked young girls. So when I found him and her, I thought he was doing something to her.”

“Pretty boy Drew never touched a young girl; I just told you that to give you a reason to run away.”

“You lied?”

“Boy, you’re dumb.”

“Why? Why did you need me and Hope to go with you? You could leave at anytime.”

“I had thought about it for a while, but I knew I’d be walking out with nothing of value. Cash money is worthless, and unless you have a cache of guns, ammo or food, you’re pretty much broke. Nope, couldn’t happen. I waited for a sign for something to come and show me the timing was right, and guess what? You two girls come along. I said to myself,
Bob, that’s your ticket right there
.”

“You didn’t need us. I don’t understand.”

“Did I hit you too hard on the head, or are you really stupid?”

Charlotte’s blood rose and her temper flared. “I should’ve put the knife in you. Had I known, I would’ve killed you.”

“There’s that fighting spirit again. You may be dumb as a sack of bricks, but you definitely have a fiery spirit.”

Charlotte leered at him; her nostrils flared in anger.

Bob looked around, the sun was setting. He liked the idea of traveling under the concealment of night. “C’mon, get your little ass up. Time to go.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“We’re going to ole Mexico first.”

Charlotte realized she needed to at least ask for mercy. “Please let me go. My sister, she’s only six years old. She needs me.”

“Your sister is probably dead by now, best you forget about her,” Bob said, deliberately being cruel.

Hearing that made Charlotte’s stomach churn. “You’re a monster.”

Bob stopped, grabbed her firmly, and pulled her close. “I’m not a monster, I’m a survivor. And look at you, covered in blood. You call me a monster. You killed someone,” Bob said, reminding her that she was capable of barbarism as much as anyone.

“I thought he was hurting her.”

“You took joy in it, I saw you.”

“I did not.”

“You’re the monster, not me.”

Charlotte knew she had to remain calm so she could try to persuade him, but again her temper was her worst enemy. She spit in his face and yelled, “I hate you.”

Bob wiped the spit from his face and drew his hand back to smack her but stopped just short of doing it.

“Go ahead, hit me,” she taunted.

“No, I can’t. I want to, but I need you looking pretty.”

Charlotte feared that comment.
What did he mean?
she thought. “What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

“You’re my currency. I can’t damage my goods.”

“What are you doing with me?” she again asked.

“I’m going to sell you to the highest bidder the second I cross over into Mexico. They pay good money for white girls,” he said with a grin.

El Centro, CA

There were promises made, and Neal was about to fulfill one of those. He had found some time to rest, and it did make him feel better.

He put on a change of clothes, brushed his teeth, trimmed his beard, and even combed his thick hair back only to cover it with a ball cap. Once dressed, he put on his tactical vest, holstered his pistol, and inspected the magazines, ensuring they were fully loaded. As he walked to the front door, he grabbed his rifle and exited his house.

It was night, but he knew every step he’d have to take to get to where he was going.

One thing he loved about the desert was the cool but dry evenings. The temperature during the day could be in the high eighties or low nineties but dip into the sixties at night. And then there was the night sky. When the moon was riding high, the stars shined with brilliance. This was a favorite sight of his and something he loved to share with Beth.

Now he felt the cool air and looked up to see the stars dazzling, but the joy was lost on him. He felt numb, cold emotionally. Unless you’d lost someone close, it was hard to describe what he was feeling.

He began his short sojourn towards Felicia’s house and was surprised how he felt once he made the first block. His body and health were returning. He hated that. He wished the botulism had taken him too.