The Escape (11 page)

“You can take your hand off the gun now.”

“Sorry,” Clarissa said, and set it down next to her. “I was just being cautious.”

“That’s good. A girl can’t be too cautious.”

Clarissa was so beautiful. Even with her vibrant auburn hair piled messily around her shoulders, even with a soot streak across her cheek, she was nothing short of breathtaking.

She had such amazing lips. Kissable lips.

Jenna sighed. She shouldn’t be thinking like that. Maybe she was still feeling sexed-up after her quickie with Barker. But on the Tracks, she had sex all the time, and loved it. She’d even found some real affection, with Taryn.

Kissing Taryn, touching Taryn . . . it had been the highlight of her too-long time at Grand Central. Something about a woman’s curves really turned her on.

Was it possible to be straight, but also want to kiss girls?

Seemed so. Or maybe she was bi. But right now, all of her emotions, all of her fantasies, had been falling straight onto Ken Barker’s broad shoulders.

So why was she imagining what Clarissa’s lips would feel like under hers?

A little voice in the back of her mind whispered

(sexual addiction)

but she pushed it down. That was before, when she had to live on the Tracks. Surely that behavior wouldn’t have followed her out here, out into the sunshine—right?

“Clarissa,” she asked softly, so the men couldn’t hear them below. “Why did you think Barker was raping me that first night?”

Clarissa blushed, as if she was embarrassed by the memory. “I’m sorry, I thought I was helping when I held that gun on him. I had no idea you two were a . . . an item.”

“We’re not really an item.”

The words came out of her automatically, without her thinking about them. But once she said it, it didn’t feel one hundred percent true. But they’d never made any commitment to each other. Just because they were traveling together and hooked up didn’t mean they were an
item
, necessarily. Right?

“Do you want to be?” Clarissa smiled at her and raised her eyebrows.

Yes. No. Yes.

“I’m not sure I’m the sort who’s meant to be monogamous. I like sex too much to save it all for one person.”

Oh God. Jenna struggled to keep herself from being so flirtatious, but it was just her way. Being sexual was the best way she knew how to communicate.

Maybe that should change, though. She needed a friend, friends—where she wasn’t trying to get into their pants. Did she even know how to do that anymore?

“If I ever have sex again, it will be too soon,” Clarissa said with a shudder.

Jenna grinned. “That’s because you haven’t been enjoying yourself. You did what you had to do on the Tracks because that’s what we all did. But . . . that’s not how sex has to be. Didn’t you enjoy it before?”

“Before the Pulse?” Clarissa looked out over the water. “Yeah. I sorta had a fling with another waiter at the diner I worked at, you know, before the Pulse. But that was so long ago. And I’ve had too many bad experiences since to even remember what good sex was like.”

“Roy seemed to like you. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind reminding you,” Jenna teased.

Clarissa laughed. “No thanks. He’s so much older than me, anyway. What do you think, like fifty years old?”

“What’s wrong with fifty? Isn’t Brad Pitt fifty?”

“Touché.”

“My friend Taryn, she was like that too. So disgusted by sex after her experiences on the Tracks. But she opened up, enjoyed herself . . . when she was with me.”

“I’m really sorry for your loss,” Clarissa said quietly.

“Me too. I wish I could make Colonel Lanche pay for what he’s done. I would kill him, if I could.”

Clarissa didn’t respond for a long time, just sat there.

“What are you thinking?” Jenna asked.

“I’m thinking how strange it is, how perfectly normal people have become prostitutes, thieves, rapists, and murderers. How did that happen?”

Jenna sighed. “Put millions of people in a desperate situation, and things happen, I guess. People do what they have to do.”

“No one had to rape anyone. Those soldiers—we were supposed to be kept safe. That’s why they put us all on the Tracks in the first place, you know?”

“That, honey, is why you should never give that gun up,” Jenna said, nodding toward the weapon near Clarissa’s right hand. “Because when someone else has all the power and isn’t afraid of the consequences, isn’t afraid of what you’ll do in retaliation . . . well, you saw what happened in the camps. At Grand Central.”

Suddenly Jenna wasn’t thinking about sex anymore.

All she saw, all she could think about . . . was revenge.

Barker
sat perched on the edge of the quarter-berth and watched as Roy methodically trimmed his hair.

“Is it even in the back?” Roy asked.

“Guess so.”

Roy was actually doing a really good job with the self-haircut, transforming his long stringy hair into what looked like a normal short haircut, like he used to have back when Barker knew him.

He trimmed his facial hair before attacking it with a razor.

“Haven’t shaved in ages,” Roy said. “Didn’t see any need to look civilized, I suppose.”

“But now there’s women,” Barker said dryly.

“I’m not . . . I know you and Jenna have something going on. That’s cool. I’m just trying to look less intimidating. Might help when we get to a town if I don’t look like a homeless person.”

“We’re all homeless now, though.”

Roy paused, rinsing his blade in a bucket of seawater. “Suppose we are.”

“When was the last time you saw my parents?”

“A while ago. Everyone in our neighborhood ended up at the church, since they set up a FEMA camp there. To get in, you had to submit to having your home searched and anything they considered useful was confiscated. Not just food, but blankets, buckets, ammo if you had any. They’d be yelling, ‘National Guard! Are you in need of assistance?’ But they’re yelling it as they’re kicking down your door and running in with their rifles in front of them.”

“I know that already. Martial law was put in place everywhere after the Pulse. Everyone knows that. What I want to know is about my parents.”

“I’m . . . I’m getting to that. Okay?” Roy sighed and finished shaving, rinsing his face. He looked like a completely different person.

“I didn’t go to the camp right away,” he continued. “Waited until it was too cold without heat to stay put, and all my food had run out. Only took a couple months, and I was one of the lucky ones, since my wife always kept a stocked pantry, and I never threw anything out after she died.”

“She had two months’ worth of food stored away?” Barker asked in surprise.

“You know, she was a Costco nut. Loved buying in bulk because it was cheaper. So I had tons of rice and beans, and cans of soup that she used to use in recipes. I had to ration, and I lost a bunch of weight, but I lived. When I got to the camp, your parents had already been there for over a month.”

“Were they okay, when you first saw them, I mean?”

Roy laughed. “Your mom was pissed. She didn’t like taking orders, or standing in line. They were forcing people to shave their hair because of lice, and she refused. Your dad tried to stand up for her, since she really didn’t have lice, but the soldiers, they were just kids, really. Following orders, excited to have power, that sort of thing.”

“I know the type,” Barker said. “So she shaved her head.” His mom would have hated that so much. As she aged, the one thing she felt she had some power over was her hair, and she always spent an inordinate amount of time blow-drying and spraying it into place.

“Yeah. She changed after that. Got less outspoken. Quieter.”

“I can’t even imagine her being quiet,” Barker mused. “We had a lice problem at Grand Central too. Lots of people shaved their heads, me included. The guys didn’t care, but the girls . . .”

“How did Jenna and Clarissa keep their hair?” Roy asked.

Barker paused. He could only guess that they were persuasive. “Not everyone shaved their heads. Just the ones who were caught scratching.”

“Your mom got some sort of cough that was going around. It got bad, really bad. You couldn’t talk to her for more than a second without her going into a coughing fit. She said she wasn’t sleeping because of it. That was in the middle of winter. Everyone was stuck inside, and the smoke from the fires people made for warmth had even healthy people coughing, so I can’t imagine it helped things. One day she was just . . . gone.”

Gone. Gone. What does that mean?

“Your father told me he woke up and she was blue, and cold, beside him. Dead. He thinks it was the cough that did it. He tried to do CPR, but of course it didn’t work. She’d probably passed away hours earlier, while he was sleeping. And then they took her body.”

“What . . . where did they take people? I mean, did they burn them, bury them? Where?”

Roy shook his head. “I don’t know. I think they started off burying people, but ran out of space. I’m really not sure. I’m very sorry, Ken—Barker. Still weird calling you that. Well, she was a fine woman, your mother.”

Barker felt like he couldn’t breathe. How could his mother just slip away in the night like that, right next to his dad? Just die from a cough that would have gone away in a week if she’d had access to proper medical treatment?

“I wish there were still gravestones, something for you to visit. Too many dead at once to even hold funerals, I guess. They talked about you, you know. Said they knew you’d be okay because you were so smart. Lawyer and all.” Roy smiled. “Your mom kept a picture of the three of you, sitting on this very boat.”

“All three of us?” Barker asked.

“Yeah. You were so young then, you probably don’t remember. Maybe ten? All three of you were in the photo because your dad had asked me to take the picture.”

Barker smiled. His dad and Roy really did go back, huh.

“What about him? What happened to my dad?”

“People were dying left and right, this was a little over three months ago. Everyone was getting diarrhea, vomiting, fevers, that sort of thing. We had no flushing toilets or running water, so the place was a shithole, literally. Your dad and I wanted out. We decided to come here and see if we could make it on our own. I think he was also holding on to the hope that maybe you’d end up here too.”

“And I did.”

“You’d think they’d want people to leave, right? So they’d have fewer people to care for, less crowding. But somehow, during all this, the camp became a prison. No one was allowed out.”

Barker nodded. “Same thing happened at Grand Central. The Colonel was worried about roving gangs, criminals, that sort of thing. I never was sure if he was worried that the citizens would become victims, or if they would become the gangs.”

“If I had to place a bet, I’d say they were worried about a resistance to the martial law forming. They’d confiscated weapons, yeah, but so many soldiers were dying too that stealing a gun off of a body became the ultimate prize.”

Barker winced. They’d done exactly that, just that morning. Fucking hell.

“So Barker—I mean, your father—and I decided to make a run for it. Your dad had a gun, and he was shot in the back the moment the guard saw him leaving with it. I . . . I saw him hit the ground. And I figured, this is my only chance, so I ran. I heard another gunshot and I knew he was dead, so I just kept running. I’m so sorry, Ken, I never should have left him.”

“I would have done the same thing,” Barker said softly. “It’s not like they just wounded him, right? Not like you could have grabbed him and carried him and he would have lived. They killed him. No use in going back for a corpse.”

“That’s good of you to say, man.” Roy ran his fingers through his freshly cut hair. “But I have a feeling I’ll still be beating myself up over it for a while yet.”

“Don’t.” But the image of his father running, escaping, tasting freedom and then feeling a bullet strike him—did he know what happened? Did he feel it before he died? So many questions, probably best unanswered.

“When I got to Locust Point, someone had taken all the working boats and wrecked the ones left. So I’ve been camping out here on your dad’s boat since.”

“I’m lucky you didn’t shoot me on sight, wearing a uniform and all.”

“Actually, I would have, if it hadn’t been for the girls. They threw me off, confused the hell out of me. I heard you all talking and just assumed you were refugees, like me. I only grabbed the girl because I wasn’t sure if you would kill me for my stuff, what little there is of it.”

“We
are
refugees, Roy. That’s exactly what we are. And you were smart to try and protect yourself anyway.”

“So are you a soldier, then? Or just wearing some dead soldier’s clothing?”

“Both. All the men the Colonel deemed fit were given uniforms and guns and told to keep in line, and keep everyone else in line. I did it because . . .”
Why?
Why had he ever let himself fall under the Colonel’s spell? “I didn’t know what else to do.”

Roy nodded. “I’m sorry about your parents. This might sound stupid, but . . . at least they’re together now, in a better place.”

“Yeah,” Barker said. “That does sound stupid.” He saw the hurt look on Roy’s face and softened his tone. “Sorry. I’m just mad as hell right now.”

And that was when Barker started thinking about revenge as well.

Emily and Mason’s cabin, upstate New York

Emily took a
strip of the salted venison and added it to the stew, which was already simmering with potatoes and onion grass.

“It’ll take a while for this to be tender,” she said to Mason.

He stopped whittling and looked up at her. “I know how we can pass the time.”

Emily smiled and looked over at their bed, the homemade mattress filled with pine needles and woodchips, covered in the hide from the deer Mason had hunted.

She took her time peeling off her shirt and pants, keeping her eyes on her . . . husband? Is that what Mason was now?

Yes.

They didn’t have a wedding or exchange vows, but they’d made a decision to make a life together, for better or worse.

“Am I your wife?” she asked softly.

“Do you want to be?”

“Yes.”

Mason smiled as he stripped off his clothes, until they stood naked together inside their little cabin.

“Then yes, you are. Wish we could find a priest or something, make it official.”

“Well, if we ever find one, we can. But you saying I’m your wife is official enough for me, any day,” she whispered.

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, running her hands through his dark hair, which was finally starting to grow in after he shaved it to disguise himself.

“You’re insanely good-looking,” she said.

“No fair, I was about to say the same thing.” He lifted her in his arms and carried her to their bed.

“So you know how handsome you are, then,” she teased.

“You’re beautiful. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”

Emily shook her head but grinned. With him, she felt beautiful. With her husband.

Husband.

Yeah, she could get used to the sound of that word.

Mason covered her body with his, capturing her nipple in his mouth, and sucked. Fuck, it felt amazing.

“This is perfect,” she said.

“I’ve barely started.”

She thrust her hips up, urging him to enter her, until his hard cock pressed against her entrance and he thrust inside her.

“I love you, Mason,” she gasped, and he thrust slowly, building up a rhythm, until their bodies rocked together as one.

The stew simmered on the fire, all but forgotten as he brought her to the height of climax and rode her through a body-clenching orgasm that had her panting.

With a low moan, Mason came inside of her.

Inside! He didn’t pull out.

“Mason—” she said, but he shushed her with one finger.

“I know. I figure we can make love and leave the possibility of babies up to God.”

Emily wrapped her arms around his shoulders, never wanting to let go.

“Thank you,” she said. “This means everything to me.”

“I won’t lie,” he said, looking into her eyes. “If you do get pregnant I’m going to be scared to death of losing you, or losing the baby. But I thought about it, and you’re right—women have been having babies forever. Why stop now, just because things are . . . different?”

“Exactly. We’ll be so happy together, our own little family,” she said. She couldn’t stop grinning.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he warned. “Having me come inside you once isn’t a recipe for an instant baby.”

“But it’s a damn good start,” she said. Emily rolled over and pulled her shirt back on. “Ready for lunch?”

Grand Central Terminal, the OCC

COLONEL LANCHE

It had been
two days, and his men still hadn’t returned with Private Barker or the girl. Clarissa.

Colonel Lanche paced the back of his Operations Control Center, which was once a storefront in Grand Central Terminal and now had plywood covering the windows. The inside was lit with candles. How the fuck had they gone so far back in time so quickly, simply by having America’s power shut off?

The centerpiece of the OCC was a large table taken from one of the food court’s restaurants. At one point the radio sat on the table. Lanche had saved the hand-cranked radio by keeping it in a homemade Faraday cage, which protected it from any EMP attack or solar flare. Thank God he’d thought ahead, even before the Pulse.

But the radio had been stolen. Its secrets told to everyone. That bitch Taryn never should have shouted out about the radio, about America rebuilding.

He had to retain control of the last remaining camp in New York City. Lanche had a responsibility to keep the survivors of New York alive, and this was the only way he knew how to do it.