Finding Home - A Post Apocalyptic Novel (The Ravaged Land Series Book 2) (26 page)

Owen looked back to make sure everyone was inside the car before he turned the key and shifted it into reverse. The car barely moved and then I could feel the tires spinning underneath us. He slammed it into drive and then back into reverse. Which thankfully was just enough to get the car rolling out and back on the road. One of the last places I’d want to be stuck was here.

“Arrgh!” I yelled and hit the passenger seat with my fists before I buried my face into my hands. I couldn’t hold in my anger. Why hadn’t he been there? Where was he? What were we going to do now?

“So, what’s our plan?” Sienna asked quietly.

I knew she was upset we hadn’t found him too. They all were. But they were all better at holding it together than I was. I had never been good at holding myself together. The only time I had been was when I was forced to after being sent away from HOME. I needed to find that part of me again.

“We’ll look for somewhere to stay for now,” Owen said, “but it has to be somewhere far away from their camp. That place makes me nervous.”

“Me too,” Penn said with a hard nod.

Dean looked out the window, and I knew the impending darkness had him worried. With the sky already so gray and gloomy, night would set in fast and we had nowhere to go. I didn’t know what I thought was going to happen once we got here. Had I thought we’d instantly find Ryan and that everyone would just magically be OK? Honestly I hadn’t given it much thought. Not nearly enough.

Now here we were. With nowhere to go, no Ryan, and everything was far from OK.

* * *

I didn’t know how long we had been driving but it was as if I blinked and then it was night. Darkness fell fast. The once gray skies were now pitch black.

“I’m not finding anything out here,” Owen said, his voice sounding hoarse. He cleared his throat before he continued, “I’m not exactly sure what to do but I can’t drive around all night. We’ll get lost, and I’m starting to worry that there aren’t many gas stations or abandoned cars out this way.”

Penn leaned forward and peered out the front window. I was scanning out the side window but every driveway I found led to an empty lot. The spaces looked like there had been houses on them once upon a time, but now they were just gone. As if someone picked them up and moved them.

“Let’s find somewhere to just park. We’ll hide ourselves and the car, and wait until morning,” Penn said looking back and forth between Dean and Owen to see how they would react to his suggestion. He was trying to be careful not to overstep his bounds. But since no one had a better idea they didn’t argue with him.

“All right, everyone keep your eyes peeled for something that might work,” Owen said, but before we even had a chance he must have spotted something. He turned down a gravel road, “Hmm… maybe this will work.”

It was a long driveway that led directly into a thick patch of trees. I was a little worried about what we might find at the end, but we kept going. I was tempted to hand Penn my gun again, but I didn’t have to. There wasn’t anything at the end of the road. The only thing there was a gravel covered parking area surrounded by a thick patch of spruce trees. The only way we’d be spotted was if someone came up the driveway. It would be highly unlikely that anyone would be wandering around through the dense wooded area during the night.

Owen turned around and flipped on the interior light. “Do we still have those flashlights somewhere?” he asked looking at each one of us in turn. Penn climbed over the seat being careful of Sienna and dug one out of the back. He passed it to me and I quickly handed it to Owen. He rolled down the window and shined it out into the wilderness, but there wasn’t anything to be seen but the trees. There were some that were thriving and growing tall, but most of the others were quite sad and limp. They were struggling to survive or already dead. The combination made a nice thick patch for us to hide the car in. He passed the light to Dean, and it was the same thing on the other side of the car.

“It seems like more of the houses are gone than trees,” Sienna said as she watched the light dance through the trees. “It’s not like the tornadoes would have only taken down houses and left the trees.”

For whatever reason, it did seem like a large amount of trees managed to stay rooted. But houses seemed more scarce. It was unusual but maybe the trees out in Washington were stronger than the houses were.

“There are plenty of areas where you can see where the tornadoes took the trees right out of the ground. It kind of seems like overall there had been fewer tornadoes out this way. But it looks as though there was significantly more flooding,” I said offering my take on it as I looked at my muddy clothes and shoes.

“Or maybe HOME is collecting the usable wood from the houses,” Penn said tapping his fingers on the seat.

“Do you know something we don’t?” Dean asked sharply as if he wanted to catch him in a lie. But there was probably a lot of things Penn knew that we didn’t know. That didn’t mean he was intentionally keeping them from us. Although that was definitely possible.

Penn shook his head and widened his eyes, “No, it was just a thought. A theory.”

And maybe he was on to something. If HOME wanted to expand or rebuild, they’d need wood. Why not gather and reuse what they could? Seemed a lot easier than chopping down trees.

Owen clicked the lock button on the door. “I wish I could drive the car right between all of these trees. I feel like a sitting duck in the open like this.”

Dean flashed the light towards the ground to see if there was anywhere they could drive deeper into the trees. But there wasn’t anything. If he tried to get in deeper the car would probably just get stuck in the muck. I was a little worried about leaving it parked on the same spot on the wet, dirty gravel all night. For all I knew we could sink down and not be able to get out in the morning. It would be a long walk back to the HOME camp.

“So…,” Dean said, and I knew he was about to start talking about something he didn’t want to bring up. And I had a feeling it was going to be about what we should do about the whole Ryan situation. I turned towards the window and rested my hand on my fist while I looked outside into the complete darkness. The only sprinkle of light was from the moon that would pop out between the clouds every once in a while. But the moon didn’t seem to know what had happened down here on earth. And if it did, it didn’t care, and was going to keep on shining no matter what.

“What is it?” Penn asked shifting forward waiting for Dean to continue with what he was going to say. He must not have felt the same tightness in the air that I had felt. It was a feeling that squeezed my chest so hard it made it difficult for me to breathe.

“About Ryan,” Dean said and I could tell he was talking to me more than anyone else in the car. I tried to keep my breathing steady and my gaze focused on the darkness. My thoughts and feelings were scrambled all over the place. I had these new feelings for Dean and I had my old feelings for Ryan. If Ryan was even still alive. I wanted to find him more than anything. In the back of my mind I thought nothing else mattered until we found him. But what would I do once we found him? How would I ever explain? And no matter who I picked, as if it would be entirely up to me, someone would get hurt. It wouldn’t be like the six of us would just travel around together and everything would be OK. I had screwed everything up, but even still I knew we had to get him back. Away from HOME. Everything else would just have to wait. Maybe all that should really matter is survival.

Penn glanced as if waiting for me. He knew finding Ryan wasn’t really something he got a vote on. Somehow, I knew whatever decision I made he would back me up.

“Maybe we should take a vote or something on what to do?” Dean said trying to keep his voice as soft as possible. I knew he cared about Ryan too, but I think he had already come to terms with this being a long-shot. We wouldn’t find him and we had to move on and do what was best for all of us.

“A vote on what?” I snapped.

Dean took a deep breath and waited. It hadn’t been his intention to turn things into an argument and I knew that, but it all felt so confrontational. What if he just wanted us to move on so he didn’t have to worry about me choosing Ryan over him? In all reality, deep down, I knew Dean wouldn’t do something like that.

I glanced at Owen but he didn’t look up. He was busy rubbing his fingers on the steering wheel as if he was cleaning off a smudge of dirt. Sienna had her legs up and was leaning forward with her head hidden inside her crossed arms.

“We should vote on our plan. What we do that is in the best interest for all of us,” Dean said as carefully as he could.

“We’ll do what Ryan would do in our shoes. He’d go back and not give up on any of us,” I said to the back of Dean’s headrest, feeling infuriated by the whole conversation. “At least not so soon he wouldn’t. We just got here,” I added a little quieter. I knew we couldn’t stay here forever staring at the camp hoping he’d materialize. Either he was there, or he wasn’t. But at the same time it seemed far too soon to put an expiration date on finding him.

Dean coughed and looked at Owen. “It’s just that every day we stay in this area is a day we are risking HOME finding us. We aren’t safe here. Not even a little. And you know what HOME will do if they find us,” he said turning his head slightly so I could see his somber profile.

“We won’t ever be able to find him if we are dead,” Owen said finally adding his two cents. “We’ll go back and check tomorrow. If he’s not there, we’ll talk about what to do next,” he added trying to sound authoritative.

Everyone in the car was completely silent. The only thing I could hear was my own breathing. I let the words sink in. Owen was absolutely right, we were no good to Ryan if we were dead.

After a long pause Owen cleared his throat, “Can we all agree on that?” He turned around to look at me as if I got the final word on the subject.

“I guess so,” I muttered and then everyone else agreed as if they had been waiting on my answer. Penn kept quiet, and I knew it was because he didn’t feel like he could give his opinion. He was just along for the ride as long as we’d let him.

Owen sat up, and stretched his neck to each side. “We’ll take shifts,” he said grabbing the flashlight from Dean and pulling his gun out of his waistband. He set it up on the dash pointing the barrel towards the window. “Next Dean, then Ros, Sienna and,” he paused briefly, “Penn, if you are up for it?”

“Not a problem. Happy to help any way I can,” he said, and he seemed like he meant it.

Sienna laid down on the back seat. I heard Dean’s shoes scrape the floor as he stretched out his legs and rested his head against his palm. Penn and I were sharing the middle seat. He rested his head on his arm against the window. He was the type of person that could fall asleep anywhere. I curled up as best as I could, resting my head against the back of the seat, but didn’t think I could ever fall asleep in such an uncomfortable position. But I must have been far more tired than I thought, because the next thing I knew I was being woken up by Dean for my shift.

It had been a challenge to keep my eyes open during my turn, but thankfully it passed by uneventfully. The most eventful part was trying to wake Sienna for her turn. She kept groaning and swatting at me until she realized what was going on.

“Oh sorry!” she whispered and then quietly laughed at herself. “I was dreaming about some girl trying to wake me up when I was finally having a decent rest for once,” she teased.

“Very funny.”

“Let’s switch spots,” she said as she started to climb over the seat. She knew I wouldn’t argue about getting the whole backseat to myself. I could stretch out my legs which were feeling sore and cramped from being in the car for so long. Being able to sleep lying down sounded delightful.

“Thanks,” I started to say, but I wasn’t even sure if I had completed the word before I fell asleep.

I dreamed about Ryan. We were all back at the house and Seth was still alive. But in the dream I knew what was going to happen to all of us. In the dream I experienced joy, sadness and fear as everything played out. Both Seth and Ryan had seemed so real, but at the same time I think I was aware of the fact that I was dreaming.

When I woke up it was because the sun was shining through the side window. Both the brightness and the heat were enough to wash away my dreams and bring me back to the real world. The last words Ryan spoke in my dream echoed through my head.

“Go on, go on, go on….”

Chapter twenty-three.

I shivered from the cold morning air that had seeped into the car. It had gotten quite chilly overnight, and it hadn’t seemed as though anyone had bothered trying to run the heater. Which was probably for the best because it would have used up our gas. It hadn’t been cold enough to get frostbite or hypothermia, but my breath clouded up the air when I exhaled.

Penn was awake and staring out the window. He had the flashlight but no gun. “Morning,” he mouthed, when he saw I was awake. He must have heard me stirring behind him. Everyone else was still asleep, and I had been the unlucky one to get blasted in the face by the bright sunlight.