Storm (16 page)

It seemed as though we all had different ideas. Olivia wanted to find a warm beach and play it safe. Kent would join her there in a second. I don’t know what Jon was thinking. His mind changed with the wind.
Tori was angry, and not just at me. She was all about finding people who were ready to fight back. But against whom? The Air Force or SYLO?
And me? I wanted my life back. But with each passing day, that seemed less likely. Part of me wanted to accept that fact and move on, but I couldn’t. My anger was growing too. Someone had to be held responsible. I needed to find out who that was. Would I have a better shot at that in Kentucky? Or Nevada?
My head was spinning with too many thoughts, which made falling asleep impossible, in spite of my exhaustion. I don’t know how long I had been lying there, maybe an hour, when I decided to get up and walk around in the hope of clearing my head. No sooner did I get up than I heard whispering coming from the far side of the emergency room. It seemed as though I wasn’t the only one who was having trouble nodding off, so I headed that way.
A camp light glowed from behind a drawn curtain where the voices were coming from. They were talking softly so as not to disturb anybody. It wasn’t until I was a step away from the barrier that I recognized the voices.
Tori and Olivia.
I froze. Those two never talked to each other. At least not as far as I knew. Olivia had taken care of Tori when she got shot, but since then there had been nothing but tension between the two, and I felt as though I was in the middle of it. Because I was. My instinct was to stop and listen to what they were saying before barging in on them.
“I can’t say enough about him,” Tori said softly. Her voice hitched with emotion. That wasn’t like Tori. She had to have been really upset to let her guard down like that, and in front of Olivia, no less.
“He took care of me when I was hurting and never asked for anything in return. I guess the best word to describe him is ‘selfless.’ He always thought of others before himself. I can’t imagine having anyone else in my life who could fill his shoes.”
I couldn’t believe it. She was talking about me! To Olivia. She really did have feelings for me. It was a great thing to hear at the end of an incredibly crappy day. My spirits were lifted instantly, though I wondered what Olivia’s comeback would be.
“I’m so sorry you lost him,” Olivia said with sincere sympathy.
Whoa. Had something been decided between the two? Was Tori professing her love for me as a way to congratulate the victor in the Tucker tug-of-war?
Olivia added, “I try to imagine that my own father was that kind of guy, but I never met him, so I’ll never know. I guess I’ll just have to pretend.”
Crash. Burn. Tori was talking about her father. I felt like an idiot. At least nobody knew I had jumped to such a dumb conclusion. Fool. “Tell me about your mother,” Tori said, sniffing back tears.
Olivia took a sad breath and said, “We’re nothing alike. She’s always ready for an adventure, but I’d rather just hang out. It was her idea to come on this trip. I fought her. I really did. I didn’t want any part of Pemberwick Island, but she insisted. It’s the first thing I’m going to remind her of when I see her.”
“I like that,” Tori said.
“What?”
“You’re totally confident your mother is okay.”
Olivia chuckled. “I know she is. It’ll take more than a little genocide to stop her.” She sniffed. Olivia was crying too, but doing her best to hold it back. “I miss her. I wish we’d never come here. I don’t want any part of it anymore. I just want to go somewhere and hide until it’s all over.”
I saw the shadow of Tori leaning over to Olivia and giving her a hug. They were both holding back sobs. These two people couldn’t have been any more different from one another, but they were bonded by the loss of their family, their lives, and the danger that lay ahead. Who knew what would happen between them tomorrow, but for a short while at least they were able to give each other some comfort.
It felt wrong to be standing there. Not just because I was eavesdropping on a private moment, but because I had immediately assumed that they were talking about me. It made me feel small to think that that’s where my head went. I backed away, hoping they wouldn’t discover that I had been there.
I crept back to my bed without anybody knowing I had been up and about. In spite of the fact that I was reeling with too many thoughts, I finally fell asleep and didn’t wake up until early the next morning. The emergency room was still pitch black. A quick look at my watch told me that it was six
a
.
m
. I sat up, stretched, and grabbed my headlamp.
Everyone was still asleep, and I wasn’t about to wake them. I thought of Mr. Hartman. The poor guy had been living in the dark for too long. Maybe Kent was right. He might have been hallucinating. I decided to check on him and make sure he had enough water.
I picked my way through the dark emergency room, following the beam of my headlamp. Strangely, I was getting used to operating in the dark with only a narrow streak of light to see by. It was probably the way miners lived. I had no problem finding the exam area where we had left the old man.
“Mr. Hartman?” I whispered. “You awake?”
No response. I pulled the curtain aside to find him the way we had left him. Sound asleep. I didn’t want to wake him. He could get a drink later. I turned away and started for the exit to see if the sun was up when I realized that something felt off. It was the sound. Or the lack of sound. Mr. Hartman had trouble breathing, as if he was too weak to pull in enough oxygen. It was painful to hear his labored breaths.
But I didn’t hear them anymore.
I stepped back to him.
The bed was still up, which meant Hartman was in a near-sitting position. He lay perfectly still with his hands folded in his lap.
He wasn’t breathing.
I started to cry. I couldn’t help it. It seems odd to be bothered by the death of one old man, especially when so many millions of people had been wiped out, but this was different. Mr. Hartman’s death had nothing to do with the war. He had reached the end of his life and left it naturally. It was a reminder that we were still human. In some odd way it gave me hope. No matter how badly things got messed up, life would continue. Unlike the death of Tori’s father and my own parents’ betrayal, Mr. Hartman’s death was one of the few things that made sense. He was an old man who died because he had a bad heart.
I reached for the blanket to cover his head. As I brought it forward, I saw that he was holding something in his hands. It was a piece of paper. Had he written a note before he died? I took it with two fingers and pulled it away from his lifeless hands to discover it was a small envelope with the hospital’s logo. There were two simple words on it, written by the weak hand of a dying man.
For Paul.
The envelope had weight. I opened it to find two rings inside: golden bands. One was large, the other small. Both were inscribed inside with the same date, January 24. I looked at Mr. Hartman’s left hand to see that his ring finger held no ring. My guess was that the larger ring was his wedding band. The other, I assumed, had belonged to his wife. The last act of his life was to try to make sure that they would get to his son. It was a very human act in a world that had become incredibly inhuman.
I dropped the rings back inside and put the envelope in my pocket.
“I can’t guarantee that your son will get these,” I said to him. “But I’ll honor your memory by keeping them safe. Thank you for trying to help us.”
With that, I lifted the blanket up and draped it over his head.

After I broke the news to the others, it took some convincing and discussion, but we eventually decided to bring him to the hospital morgue. Olivia didn’t want any part of the process, no big surprise. Neither did Kent, but I shamed him into it. Jon found a gurney, and we transferred the already stiffening body onto it. I had to give Jon credit. He took the lead, and why not? He was the only one of us who had experience transporting dead bodies.

It was an eerie procession to the morgue as we moved behind the light of our headlamps. Olivia eventually joined us, but only to hold one of the camp lanterns. She always came through when I least expected her to.

We found the morgue and were all relieved to see that there were no bodies lying on any of the tables. After several weeks and no air conditioning, that would have been gruesome.

“We should put him in there,” I said, pointing to the wall of stainless steel refrigerator doors, where the morgue visitors were kept.
“Why?” Kent asked. “There’s no power.”
“To give him a little dignity,” I said. “We can’t just leave him

out here in the open.”
“Hate to break this to you,” Kent said. “He doesn’t care.” “But I do!” I shouted at him.
“Whoa, easy,” he said, holding up his hands. “You’ll wake the

dead.”
“Not funny,” Tori admonished.
“Yeah, it is, a little,” Kent said with a snicker.
“Look,” I said, trying to control my emotions. “I know it

won’t make any difference to the guy if we leave him in the open or put him in the drawer or bring him to a cemetery and bury him in a giant mausoleum. Nobody will know or care either way, but there are some things you have to do because they’re right. Every time we take something from a store or drive that Explorer or siphon gas or take food, it makes me feel like we’re letting a little bit of civilization slip away.”

“So you want to pay for what we take?” Kent said, scoffing. “No, I’m saying that I’m afraid we’re going to forget who we are. Canned food is going to run out. Gas is going to go dry. We may have trouble finding clean water or a warm place to sleep. How are we going to handle that? If we treat Mr. Hartman like he doesn’t matter, what’s next? Do we start fighting over who gets the biggest piece of fruit? Or ignore somebody who’s hurt? Or not give water to a dying man? It scares me to think that we may be headed toward a world run by jungle rules. Survival of the fittest.”
Nobody argued. They kept their eyes on the ground.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I don’t want to go there.”
I hoped their silence meant they were all imagining what it might be like if the rules of civilization were thrown out. At least Kent didn’t crack any more bad jokes.
Tori walked to the wall of freezers, hesitated before choosing one, then reached up and pulled open a door.
I held my breath, fearing that the cooler might already be occupied.
It wasn’t.
Tori pulled out the long drawer, and without another word we all worked together to move Mr. Hartman. Even Olivia. We lifted him up to find he was ridiculously light. After gently placing him in the drawer, feet first, Jon slid him inside and closed the door. It locked shut with a loud click that sounded very final.
“Do we say anything?” Jon asked.
We shared looks. What could be said? We didn’t even know the guy.
I faced the others and said, “Let’s just say we hope he’s in a better place and we’re glad that he’s not suffering anymore. And we thank him for trying to help us out. I guess it says something about somebody when the last thing they do in life is to offer help to complete strangers.”
I didn’t mention the rings. I’m not sure why. I guess I was afraid that Kent would somehow cheapen it by saying how dumb it was for me to have taken them.
“Amen,” Olivia said.
She was crying.
We stood there for a few seconds, offering a moment of silence.
“That’s it,” Kent declared. “I’m outta here.”
It was a disrespectful way to end the moment, but I wanted to get out of there too. We all hurried out of the morgue, up the stairs, and went directly to the outside doors of the emergency room in search of morning light.
I blew through the doors first, stepped into the warmth of the sun, and took a deep breath of fresh air. I needed it. Badly.
It was now full-on autumn. The sky was a brilliant blue, and the trees had become a dazzling rainbow of reds, yellows, and oranges. It was my favorite time of year. It made me think of Halloween and Patriots games and Thanksgiving dinner . . . and school. Would I ever set foot in a school classroom again?
“So what’s the verdict?” Tori asked, all business. “Are we going to Nevada or what?”
“I say yes,” Kent chimed in quickly. “If there’s a chance we can punch back at these bastards, I say we take it.”
“Do you really believe there’s an army of survivors out there that can stand up to SYLO?” I asked. “Or the Air Force? Or both?”
“I have no idea,” Kent replied quickly. “But I hope there is. There are two sides to this war, and I don’t want to be on either one of them. Who else can we trust but people like us? At some point, one of those armies is going to win and take over, and I don’t want to be at their mercy. We’ve gotta build some power of our own, and that radio broadcast offers the only hope of doing that.”
“Amen,” Tori said. “I couldn’t have said it better. What about you, Jon?”
Jon was reluctant to answer, but we all stood there staring at him, so he had no choice.
“I’m sorry, Tori,” he began. “I know I wanted to go before, but I’m not so sure we can trust that broadcast. Not after what happened at Faneuil Hall. It sounds too similar, like we’re being lured in. Even if it’s legit, I don’t see how a bunch of civilians can fight those armies. Either of them. Like it or not, we’re going to be at the mercy of the winning side . . . unless we die fighting them. Now we’ve got another option. I say we go to Kentucky and see if there really is a safe haven. That’s my vote. Kentucky.”
Tori skipped Olivia and looked at me.
“What do you say, Tucker?”
“What about me?” Olivia asked. “Don’t I get a say?”
“We already know what you want to do,” Tori replied. “Florida, right?”
Whoa. Had Olivia told Tori about trying to convince me to go to Florida? Had she painted the idyllic picture of lolling in the warm sand and sleeping under palm trees the way she had with me? I mentally kicked myself for thinking that way. This isn’t about you, Tucker. Get over yourself.
“Yes, Florida,” Olivia said with confidence. “I agree with Jon. We aren’t soldiers. We can’t fight these armies. Winter is coming on fast. I say we go to Florida, where it’s warm and safe, and wait until it’s over . . . but I’m not going by myself.”
“Got it,” Tori declared. “You all know where I stand. Two say we go to Nevada, one says we go to Kentucky, and one says we go to Disney World. It comes down to you, Tucker.”
Once again, the group was looking to me to make a decision. No matter what I said I’d have two people angry at me.
“I agree with all of you,” I responded.
“That’s not a vote,” Kent said quickly.
“Just listen. I’m not so sure about this rebel survivor thing. Maybe it’s real, maybe not. Like Kent said, I hope it’s true. At least it means we’d have a chance at fighting back and taking control of our own futures.”
“Thank you!” Kent exclaimed.
“Good,” Tori declared. “We go to Nevada.”
“Through Kentucky,” I added quickly.
“What?” Tori snapped.
“You’re kidding me,” Kent complained. “Why?”
“To learn,” I said. “If what Mr. Hartman said was true, there are people there who knew this was coming. We might be able to learn something we can bring with us to Nevada. That kind of information could make us valuable to the survivors gathering there . . . assuming they exist.”
Tori stared me square in the eye. I was afraid she was going to tee off on me for not supporting her again.
I shrugged and said, “Why not? It’s on the way.”
She actually gave me a small smile and said, “That’s pretty smart.”
“I have my moments,” I said, totally relieved.
Olivia said, “What if we find this safe place in Kentucky and some of us want to stay?”
“Then stay,” I replied. “I hope we stick together, but we’ve all gotta do what we’ve gotta do.”
I looked to each person in turn, waiting for their response.
The first one to react was Kent. He walked past me, headed for the emergency room door.
“Everybody get your stuff,” he said. “We’re outta here.” “I still want to go to Florida,” Olivia said with a pout.
It was as simple as that. Minutes later we were back on the road and headed south.
We used the atlas to plot a route that would take us south through Connecticut, past New York City, and into northern New Jersey. The route then headed west: We would drive the length of Pennsylvania and on into Ohio. Once through Ohio, we’d head south again and into Kentucky. Our goal was to get to the airport in Louisville, just as Mr. Hartman suggested.
From there it was anybody’s guess as to what we would do.
We planned the route to skirt major cities, figuring that if there was any military activity it would more likely be in populated areas. Or areas that
used
to be populated.
We drove very close by the town where I had lived before moving to Pemberwick Island: Greenwich, Connecticut. Part of me wanted to swing by my old house to get one last look, but I knew it would be more painful than heartwarming. I had great memories of living there. I didn’t want them spoiled by facing the reality that the kids I had gone to Glenville School with were probably all dead.
We took turns driving. I had zero experience driving on the interstate, but it wasn’t like I had to deal with traffic. The challenge was to stay alert and avoid the occasional empty car in the middle of the road.
With each passing mile, we saw more confirmation of the extent of the attack. I had been holding out hope that at some point we would find a town that hadn’t been hit and that would mark the outer edge of the Air Force’s deadly reach. It never happened. Allentown, Harrisburg, Zanesville. We passed dozens of towns, large and small. Each one was as desolate and empty as the last.
We stopped several times to siphon gas, usually picking larger SUVs and the occasional Hummer for their monstrous gas tanks. It wasn’t worth stopping for smaller cars or hybrids. We made a game out of it to keep things interesting. If you picked a car with more than ten gallons, you could skip your next turn at siphoning. It was dumb, but it helped pass the time. It wasn’t like we could listen to the radio, and nobody was in the mood to sing camp songs.
Halfway through Pennsylvania we stopped in a small town called Washington to find food. There was a Shop ’n Save grocery store that had everything. We split up and agreed to meet back at the car in twenty minutes.
I went for the produce section. Big mistake. The fruits and vegetables had long since gone bad. The sweet smell of rotting fruit made me gag. I skipped the breads, figuring they’d be stale. I went nowhere near the meat section, or the frozen food.
What it came down to, and where we all ended up, was the cereal aisle. We chowed down on our favorites. Mine was Toasted Chex. I also went through a bunch of cereal bars. After that I swung by the snack section and cracked open a can of mixed nuts. I figured they might be somewhat healthy. I then washed it all down with some warm Gatorade. It wasn’t exactly a delicious, balanced meal, but it filled me up.
With every package I opened, I took note of something that usually meant nothing to me: expiration dates. It wasn’t that I was worried about the food having gone bad, it was more about the grim reality that in spite of what seemed like an endless food supply, it wasn’t going to last forever. The expiration date was a reminder that life, and our survival challenges, would only get more difficult.
Before leaving, I went to the pharmacy, grabbed a toothbrush and toothpaste, and brushed my teeth. I kept the toothbrush and the Speed Stick deodorant that I used for a couple of quick swabs under the arms. On the way out, I picked up a few small bags of nuts for the road.
Kent was waiting at the front door, deep into a bag of Oreos.
“I hope you ate something better than that,” I said.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I polished off a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. That’s got corn in it, right?”
I didn’t feel like getting into a discussion on the importance of eating healthy, so I just smiled and nodded.
Tori arrived with a small basket loaded with vitamins.
“I forgot to get vitamins in Springfield,” she said. “We’ve gotta be good about taking them every day.”
“What are you?” Kent asked. “My mother?”
“Do what you want,” she said. “But don’t blame me if you start feeling like crap because you’re eating only sugar and salt.”
She stuck a bottle of multivitamins in his jacket and headed for the car.
Kent said, “I think she’s got a thing for me. Should I go after that?”
All I could do was laugh and walk away, but the question bothered me. Was he right? Did Tori have a thing for Kent? She was really upset with him when he tried to kiss her at Faneuil Hall, but things had changed since then. She definitely didn’t want anything to do with me anymore, not after the shower incident. But I wanted her to trust me again. Did Kent’s question bother me because I didn’t want drama added to an already difficult situation?
Or was I jealous?
We piled back into the Explorer and drove for another few hours. By five o’clock the sun was sinking low.
“It’ll be dark soon,” I announced. “We should find a place to sleep.”
None of us wanted to be out and about at night. We hadn’t seen a single black plane since Boston, but the threat was always there. It wasn’t worth taking the chance. Besides, we’d been driving for twelve hours straight.
We found another hospital outside of Columbus, Ohio. After holing up twice in hospitals, we knew the routine. We found a big, modern medical center called Mount Carmel East that was close to the interstate. Without saying a word, we parked in front of the emergency entrance, trudged inside with our bags, and made ourselves at home.
Jon went straight for the radio.
Olivia made Kent search the place to make sure there weren’t any patients who might scare her.
Tori went for the kitchen to find dinner.
It was a practiced routine, and one I feared we’d be repeating again and again. The only person who did something a little different was me. I sat down with the atlas to plan our route to Kentucky and to look for anything that might give us a hint as to where a safe haven might be.
I took out the folded map of the state and spread it out on a counter, looking for . . . I didn’t know what. It wasn’t like there was going to be a big signing saying: “Safe Haven.”
“It’s not about revenge for me,” Tori said as she put a plate piled high with corn and tuna fish in front of me.
I hadn’t questioned her, but she obviously wanted me to know where her head was.
“It isn’t?” I asked. “You sure sound like you want somebody to pay for your father’s death.”
She sat down with her own plate of food, and we ate.
“I do,” she said. “But that’s not why I want to go to Nevada.”
“You mean you don’t want to fight for all that’s right and noble and retake the country?” I said this with a smile, hoping she realized I was overstating things.
She smiled back.
I was happy that we were being civil.
“That would be good too,” she said. “But I’m not crazy. The chance that a bunch of ordinary people can stand up to either of those armies is, well . . .”
She didn’t have to finish the sentence.
“So then why do you want to go there so badly?” I asked.
Tori sighed. “Because I don’t know what else to do. I can’t just sit around and wait for someone to tell us where the world is headed.”
“I wouldn’t worry about finding things to do. We’ll be pretty busy just trying to stay alive.”
“That’s not enough,” she argued with passion. “We didn’t ask for this. We had no say. Nobody voted on whether SYLO should be allowed to lead us to Armageddon or if the Air Force needed to fight them to save the world. If we just shrug and say, ‘Oh well, let’s make the best of it,’ then we’re allowing ourselves to remain victims. We didn’t have a say before. Now we do.”
We let that sit there for a while as we ate. I was happy that Tori was opening up to me. It wasn’t something she did very often. Or ever. Maybe we were becoming friends again.
She said, “I’m telling you this because I want you to know that even if we find some incredible Eden in Kentucky, I’m not staying. I won’t blame you if you decided to, and I’d be shocked if Jon and Olivia didn’t. Kent says he wants to fight, but he’s selfish. If we find a place that’s sweet enough, he’ll stay. But I won’t.”