A Town Called America (7 page)

At the bottom of the hill, Rick’s vision started to return. His sight was still somewhat blurry, and he was bleeding, but when he opened his eyes, he was looking up at a man he didn’t recognize standing over him. The man was tall and slender, with long dirty hair and a beard. His clothes were tattered, and he was looking straight down at Rick.

“I like your boots,” he said in a condescending tone.

Rick tried to reach for his shotgun with his right hand, but it was a moot point, as the man stepped on the weapon, preventing Rick from grabbing it. With no words exchanged, the two men looked at each other for a moment before the man pointed his pistol at Rick’s head.

A moment later the man lurched backward, screaming in pain. Rick had managed to stab him through the foot with his seven-inch Elvis knife, which was now sticking out of the man’s right boot. With the last of his energy, Rick rolled over and reached for his shotgun. Grasping the weapon, he turned onto his back and shot the man in the chest. He flew backward as hundreds of tiny pellets ripped through his chest. Blood instantly splattered on Rick’s face.

With the little energy he had left, Rick crawled over to where the man’s body now lay and pulled his knife from the man’s boot. He looked at his hand and the blood-soaked knife he held. The handle had an inscription that read,
THE KING
. Gazing at the man’s body, Rick struggled to stand. Once he was on his feet, he looked down at the corpse and with a slight grin said, “In the end the king always wins, baby.”

Rick then ripped his shirt apart in order to apply pressure on his side and arm in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Again he scanned the area. This time he saw the others had no interest in him, as they were preoccupied with the contents of the RV.

He turned and staggered through the smoke and past the fire that was engulfing his cabin. Using his shotgun as a makeshift cane, he made his way slowly up the hill. Every step was like walking on the surface of the sun. Hardly able to move, Rick kept going like a machine; he wasn’t going to stop until he reached Chris.

Chris entered the first house she came upon. It was two stories and at least three or four times the size of the home she had lived in as a child. It was a huge house with light-blue vinyl siding. Chris looked at it for a moment, wondering what kind of people once lived there.

Stopping at the back door, she turned and looked down the street before she entered the home. These homes, all of them, were once the pride of their owners; now they were all in shambles. Lawns that once had been manicured were now overgrown, and nearly all the windows had been shattered. The glass that once provided protection from the elements now lay in tiny pieces on the ground.

Every home she saw on the street told the same story. All the homeowners who had survived either had killed themselves, starved, or died trying to hold on to their precious belongings while invaders looted everything in sight.

Chris made her way to what appeared to once have been a family room. She sat on the dirty couch next to a giant hole that once had been a bay window; it overlooked the backyard and the iron gate she had come through. She sat and waited for Rick to come walking through, but he never did.

As she waited she felt truly alone and as far away from any place she called home as she possibly could be.

ELEVEN

E
very day Chris searched the homes within a three-block radius. She scavenged for food, medical supplies, or anything else that could help her. She foraged through the stench of rotting human and animal flesh; dead remains lay in nearly all the homes. Trash had been left in nearly every home, scattered throughout, making it almost impossible to find anything of value.

Nevertheless Chris continued to search, and as before, water wasn’t an issue, as it had been raining for the last few days. Food, however, was becoming a greater problem than ever. All she was able to find were a couple of cans of peas and three bottles of Jim Beam. As hungry as she was, the bottles of Jim were more of a prize than the peas.

Chris sat down on a bed and threw her backpack on the floor next to her. She pulled out a bottle of liquor and began to drink. It didn’t take long before she was intoxicated. The more she drank, the more emotional she became, until she wondered whether she’d ever be sober again. About a third of the way through her first bottle, lying on her back, she drifted off to sleep, thinking about Rick.

The next morning she awoke to find herself with a headache and a queasy stomach. She had eaten the pees the night before and realized that if she didn’t find more food soon, her situation would go from bad to worse.

Unknown to Chris, Rick had made it all the way to the lake with no assistance, but that was all he could manage, as he had lost far too much blood. He lay on the ground, gripping his side. With his head canted slightly to the right, he could just barely see the water in the lake.

How calming he thought it was, wishing he could float off into the sunset until he went wherever people go when they die. The water was perfectly still, with no sound to it. It was just there, and there was where Rick wanted to be.

He was tired. Tired of fighting, tired of trying to survive, and most of all, tired of losing everything precious to him. His wife, son, and cabin were gone. Now, and most important, he was losing Chris. Certain that his time was on earth was finished, Rick closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, hoping he wouldn’t wake up.

When he did wake, his vision was again blurred, and again he knew something wasn’t exactly right. Although he couldn’t see clearly, for a moment he was unsure whether he was alive or had died. “Am I dead? Hello?” he said.

He wondered whether he actually had said that aloud or if it was just in his head. His mind unclear as his head pounded in pain, he lay there, wondering where he was, how he had gotten there, and whether he had gotten a second chance by some miracle.

Had some unseen force stepped out of the shadows and aided him in his time of need?

A voice
, he thought.
Did I hear a voice just now? Am I losing my mind?

“Where’s Chris?” he asked.

“You’re not losing your mind, but you need to rest. I’m going to give you something to help you sleep,” the unseen female responded to his pleas in a calming tone.

A voice. I hear a woman’s voice
, Rick thought, as his mind drifted into an endless abyss.

Chris had hit her rock bottom. It was her breaking point, and she knew it. She didn’t know whether Rick was dead or alive, and although she had thought about leaving the area on more than one occasion in the previous weeks, she ultimately had decided she wasn’t going to do to Rick what so many others had done to her.

If by some miracle, there was a chance he was alive, she’d be here when he arrived. That was a promise she had made to Rick and herself, and she intended to keep it.

She wasn’t staying because she was scared to go but because, for the first time in her life, she knew she loved someone, and he actually loved her too.

Several months earlier, Rick had told her he loved her for the first time. She didn’t know what to say or how to react, as she’d never allowed herself to feel the way she did before. When he said it, the only thing she could think to do was kiss him softly on the lips, and then, without words, she walked away.

Even after that he stayed with her, risking his life to protect her. To her, Rick was the greatest gift she never deserved, but at that moment, alone in an empty house, it wasn’t enough. She was still, after all, alone.

If she could only know what had happened to Rick. Did he die? If so, where was his body? Why would anyone take his body? She had walked that trail by the lake more times than she could count since the cabin had burned down. Each time she found no sign of what had happened to him.

The cabin had been destroyed, and the RV had been gutted. Where they once had found shelter and security, there was now only a hole in the ground. Chris’s greatest concern was that she hadn’t found his body. In a sense it gave her hope that he was still alive, but the unanswered question of where Rick was ate at her mind.

People from the area now knew where the cabin was, and Chris knew she never could go back. There was no way they could ever rebuild it.

Every day she felt as if she were drowning, desperately trying to stay afloat. Anytime things began to look up for her, a wave would hit her and push her further underwater. She only wanted to be able to take
a breath, but because she felt like as if she were unable to breathe, she continued to drink her pilfered Jim Beam.

It was a temporary fix, and her problems would be there when she sobered up, but it didn’t matter. If she was drunk, she wasn’t thinking about being alone, tired, or hungry.

With the walls closing in around her, Chris staggered to her feet and moved to the balcony just off the upstairs bedroom. The balcony overlooked an empty swimming pool twelve feet below. If she centered herself just right, she thought, she’d have another ten feet before she hit the concrete bottom.

Confused and with her thoughts clouded, she wanted to hang on, to live, to find Rick and leave this nightmare and all her awful memories from Brick Creek behind her. Nevertheless she was alone and without food, and Rick certainly was dead.
So what’s the point?
She thought.

Then the “what ifs” began:
What if he’s alive? What if he’s dead?
These thoughts repeatedly played out in her mind until she stepped down from the railing and back into the bedroom, where she curled up in a corner once more to sleep.

TWELVE

R
ick again woke up in the same room he didn’t recognize. This time the room was empty except for the bed he sat in. A makeshift IV bag was hanging from a coat hanger on a nail in the wall to his left. A dim light flickered on the wall next to the only door in the room, and a slight buzzing sound of electricity came from a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

The walls and floor were made of concrete, which ruled out Rick’s first thought that he might be in a hospital.

Where was he, and how did he get here? He pulled the IV from his arm after sitting up in bed. Examining himself he pulled back the bandages, which revealed not only that his wounds had been dressed but also that someone had stitched him up.

He didn’t have the answers he wanted, and it was driving him mad. He was grateful for sure, but he hated the idea of not being in control.

As Rick got out of bed, he felt the cold of the concrete floor beneath his feet. He was wearing a standard hospital gown, and the chill of the air went right up his open back as he made his way across the room toward the door. Using the dirty concrete wall for support, he opened the door. Just on the other side stood a rickety wooden bookshelf with his belongings as well as a pair of dingy overalls that looked to be two sizes too big for him.

Taking his time to carefully dress, he wondered why his pistol and shotgun were there. Why wouldn’t someone keep them for himself or herself?

He made his way through a dimly lit hallway that also was made of concrete. At the top of a wooden staircase, he opened a door, which led to another surprise: the door was unlocked, just as the one had been in the basement room where he had woken up.