Hell's Children: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (7 page)

“Stalin?” Tony said. “I get it. He’s like a drug cartel boss.”

Jack didn’t know much about drug cartel bosses, so he said, “
Exactly
like a drug cartel boss.”

The younger boy seemed to deflate. “So if we ain’t joining them, then what?”

Jack smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

T
heir immediate problems
, Jack said, were food, secure shelter, manpower, medicine, and a safe and dependable water supply. When Greg pointed out they had a giant pool of water out back, he asked how long it would stay clean when rodents inevitably fell in and drowned. Better if they had something they didn’t have to boil every time they got thirsty, like a natural spring, or a well with a pump (though he had no idea how they’d power it).

Jack had a few ideas about how to get more food beyond simple scavenging, but didn’t go into that. For now, their hoarded food would have to last them.

Medicine, he said, would have to be scrounged from homes and any pharmacies that hadn’t already been looted. He figured looters would have gone for the painkillers, and even then, he wondered how many survivors in the area were pill poppers. He didn’t know anything about drug addiction, though he suspected it was one of the reasons his parents hadn’t wanted him going to high school.

In addition to drugs, the doctors and dentists of the world were all gone. Broken arms could be splinted. He could learn how to pull teeth. But fillings and root canals and the like were now a lost science. Going forward, he asked that everyone maintain a strict no-sugar policy, and that brushing came second only after staying awake on watches in terms of priorities.

“If I had my way,” Jack added, “we’d limit carbohydrates, too. The Inuit never had to brush their teeth. All they ate was blubber and protein and organs, and they had near perfect dental health.”

He’d learned that from his mom, who taught in the biology department at the university. Other hunter-gather societies were the same, she’d said.

Pete made a face. “That’s disgusting. You’re full of it.”

Jack just shrugged and continued to the next thing: shelter.

The problem with the Welcome Center was it had eight different entrances, huge windows front and back, and it was sitting in the middle of a large number of other apartment complexes and housing communities. Worse, the smoke from the pit out back was a beacon to the food gangs. They needed to relocate to a more remote location with a fireplace—preferably with a stove, like he’d seen at a cabin with his parents a few years ago. The stove sat inside the fireplace and kept the whole cabin toasty, and there was even a cooking surface on top. Way more efficient use of fuel.

“Is the gas out everywhere, or just here?” he said to Greg at one point. His own house was all electric, and he had no idea if gas was still a viable heating option this long after the Sickness.

“I don’t know about everywhere,” Greg said. “It turned off here the same time as the water and electricity. Lots of freezing kids out there right now.”

Pete grunted. “Most of them are probably dead. I mean, how’s a baby gonna feed itself?”

“We can’t think about that,” Jack said quietly. “Not if we’re going to keep going.” He turned to Lisa. “How many people our age do you still see around here? Minus the ones who attacked you.”

She rubbed her chin. “There’s still one or two I know hiding in their apartments that I couldn’t get to join us. They’re pretty far-gone. The rest float between the supermarkets, restaurants, and houses scrounging for anything they can find. I found a dead cat the other day that looked like it’d been skinned. Messy and wasteful.”

Jack nodded slowly to himself.

“He’s got that look in his eye,” Greg said to his sister. “He’s gonna say something Chosen One-ish.”

Jack ignored that and said, “Let’s do a final sweep of the complex and surrounding neighborhoods—see if we can get more recruits. We’ll go in armed groups of two.” He recalled that nut with the bat, smashing out car windows. “Nobody crazy, and no troublemakers. And try not to get anyone younger than about ten.”

“How do we get them to come?” Greg said.

“If they still have food, offer them security in exchange for sharing. If they don’t have anything, offer security, food, medicine, that kind of thing. The basics.”

Greg looked at him like he was crazy. “We don't have medicine. Nobody’s gotten sick. And if they did, how would you know what to give them?”

“Usually it says on the bottles,” Jack said impatiently. “If it doesn’t, we find a book on it later and figure it out. Next topic: what do we need that you guys haven’t scrounged already?”

Tony said, “Gold and silver. Coins and chains and stuff like that. And diamonds. One day, may have to use that as money.”

Jack wasn’t so sure about that, considering the world’s supply of precious metals and jewels was now available for a tiny population to easily grab. Not wanting to stifle anyone’s creativity, he smiled and nodded.

“Good idea,” he said. “What else?”

Pete said, “Backpacks? For the children. So they can carry stuff.”

“Excellent idea, Pete. Everyone gets their own pack. What else?”

More time passed while they brainstormed ideas, none of them coming up with anything the twins and Tony hadn’t scavenged already.

Jack said, “How about fishing tackle? Rods, reels, lures, that kind of thing. I brought a little with me, but we could use more.”

Lisa quirked an eyebrow. “You know some place to fish around here that I don’t?”

“Not around here,” he said, smiling mysteriously. “Later on, who knows?”

Pete started saying how fish had mercury in them, and that’s why they couldn’t eat them, and they didn’t taste good anyway.

With a teasing twinkle in his eye, Tony said he’d never seen mercury in fish sticks. Pete said you needed a microscope to see mercury, and Tony just laughed at him.

“Guys, please,” Jack said, and they quieted. “Lisa and I will head out together. Greg?”

Greg shrugged. “I’ll go with Tony.”

Lisa looked at Pete. “Someone should stay here and watch the kids. How good are you with a gun?”

“I’m a pacifist.”

Jack sighed. “What about scavenging?”

Pete looked skeptical. “I’m not going anywhere with dead bodies inside.”

“Most of the places have already been opened and searched already,” Lisa said. “For any that aren’t, we have tools in one of the closets. Should be a crowbar in there. As for the dead bodies: just sniff at the doors. If it’s fresh, go in.”

Jack said, “We need prescription drugs. Look in the bathroom cabinets. Also, bring back any car keys you find.”

Tony said, “Don’t forget gold.”

Pete sighed with impatience. “Anything else?”

“You should bring Mandy and the kids with you,” Lisa said. “They shouldn’t be here alone.”

Pete snorted and stalked from the room.

“Fun guy,” she said.

Jack just smiled.

* * *

J
ack and Lisa
spent the rest of the day ranging through three other apartment complexes. As a precaution, he carried his dad’s AR-15, and Lisa wore a 9mm on her hip.

They took turns knocking on doors. Every door got three rounds of loud knocking before they moved on. As it happened, they moved on quite a bit. Sometimes they’d hear something inside and knock a fourth time, only to leave empty handed.

One time, they knocked on a door and a rail-thin girl around the right age opened without first asking who was there. Her hair was dyed green with blond roots. Jack had never met anyone with green hair before and felt oddly intimidated.

“Hi,” he began. “Uh, I’m Jack, and …”

The girl turned around and walked deeper inside.

The two friends looked at each other, then into the dark apartment. The girl was gone. Like a ghost.

“We going in?” Lisa whispered.

Jack seriously considered shutting the door and leaving.

Lisa said, “Keep that big gun ready,” and walked in.

“Hey,” he whispered, but it was too late.

For the first time in a year, Jack chambered a round in his dad’s rifle. After applying the safety, he followed her inside.

The sour, ever-present stink of the Sickness intruded from everywhere, assaulting him like hammer blows. At a certain point in the process, people lost control of their bowels, too weak to hold anything in.

“Jack, in here!”

He rushed forward into a candle-lit room, prepared for the worst and wishing for anything but what he saw. Lying on a king-size bed was the paper-thin body of a woman next to an adult male corpse.

“How can she still be alive?” he said in horror.

“She’s not,” Lisa said. “He is.”

Jack jerked back in fright—the so-called corpse was a man in the last stages of the Sickness. His mouth worked open and shut, dragging in painful gasps for air, and his body was covered in sores. The woman on the bed had died some time ago and had simply dried out next to her husband.

Jack’s parents had agreed not to let it progress this far. His mom ended his dad’s suffering after he’d lost the ability to eat or drink. A few days ago, she told Jack she loved him, zipped herself into a sleeping bag, and followed his dad into death by her own hand.

The green-haired girl was beside the bed on her knees, praying under her breath in a mumbled rush.

“Hey,” he said. “You, uh … You should get out of here. There’s no … Your dad, he …”

Lisa looked at him and shook her head.

He couldn’t say the simple truth: there was no hope here. The girl wasn’t paying attention to him in any event. She just prayed and rocked.

Lisa retreated to the living room, and Jack followed her.

“What now?” he said.

Her eyes flashed angrily. “Oh, I’m suddenly in charge?”

Jack started to reply but she stopped him.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just … my parents. They looked that way. Mom … she was so thin when she died. I carried her down three flights by myself. We buried her first. The hole wasn’t deep enough for the … to stop the dogs from …” She turned around and shook in a series of short, wracking sobs.

“Let’s go outside,” he said.

She nodded and followed him out.

“Sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I haven’t cried this much in years.”

“I tried crying, once,” Jack said. “Just to see what it was like.”

She glanced at him, smiled a little, and slid down into a seated position against the wall. “We can’t leave her in there.”

“I’d ask her to join us,” he said, “but she won’t leave her dad. Not until he’s gone. The way he looked, it can’t be that long. She’d be a good addition to the group.” He looked back inside. “I mean, for her age. No idea how her head’s doing.”

Lisa nodded.

They waited like that for a while, not talking. The girl didn’t show up, and the door was still open.

“Lisa,” he said at one point, choosing his words carefully. “When you said eight kids attacked you guys and only six left … did you mean that the way it sounded?”

She nodded.

“Can I ask who did it?”

“Me,” she said in a light voice. “Greg took the bodies in my dad’s car and put them in the dumpster.”

Jack nodded thoughtfully. There was probably no delicate way to ask her to kill the man in apartment. And what kind of coward was he, that he couldn’t do it himself?

Lisa snorted and glanced at him in disgust. “I’m
not
going to euthanize that man, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He shook his head. “Totally not thinking that.”

A few minutes later, he got up and walked back inside. He found the girl lying on the ground next to the bed, staring off into space. Her father, unfortunately, was still breathing. It couldn’t be much longer.

“Hey, you—kid,” Jack said. “We have a group, but we need more people. Your dad, though … He’s not going to make it, and I’m sorry about that. None of the adults do. I don’t think he has much longer.”

The girl didn’t reply.

He tried again. “We’re a good group. Nice folks. We need more help. If you want to come, there’s a spot for you.”

He hated how lame he sounded. Insensitive. Lisa would have done a better job.

The girl hadn’t been crying when they’d first walked in. Now her cheeks gleamed wetly in the flickering candlelight.

“So, if you’re interested,” he said. “You know, after … We’re down at the Rolling Meadows Welcome Center. There’s heat, food, and other people for protection. We’re leaving for a better place soon, so you need to hurry. Two days, tops, and then we’re gone. Okay? Can you nod if you understand?”

A minute later, when she didn’t nod or get up, Jack stepped quietly from the room. Then he and Lisa left.

T
hey returned
to Rolling Meadows by cutting through a duplex community. Jack had lost the heart to continue their search after seeing the girl and her doomed father, and Lisa clearly felt the same.

When they turned the corner at the end of the long block of garden-style apartments, they saw a group of about ten people in front of the Welcome Center. Boys and girls, and no little kids. For a moment, he thought maybe Tony and Greg had wildly succeeded in bringing in more people. But then he saw some of them had pistols clenched carelessly in their hands. And though none of them was tall with red hair, he knew what he was looking at.

“Do you see Greg?” Lisa said, squinting against the afternoon sun.

Jack said, “Nope. Nobody else, either. Maybe they’re still out recruiting.”

“I hope so. What do we do?”

“Oh, I’m in charge now?” Jack said, more from a sense of nervousness than a desire to be funny.

Lisa smiled tightly. “We have the drop on them. How many rounds does that rifle carry?”

His mouth felt dry. “Thirty in the magazine.”

“Do you want me to do it? I can spare you that.”

Jack sucked in a long, steadying breath and shook his head. “I’ve had more practice. From a distance I—”

A girl in a puffy orange coat pointed their way and shouted something. As one, her companions turned to look. One raised a pistol and fired, causing Jack and Lisa to crouch automatically. The shooter was too far away for anything like accuracy, but he could still get lucky.

The two friends ran back around the corner to bangs and cracks as more joined in. A short-term solution. The complex was like Swiss cheese, with covered walkways running through the middle connecting parking lots on either side. Unless they fled the neighborhood, they’d be surrounded in no time.

Jack had cleared the rifle back at the girl’s apartment and topped off the mag. Now he chambered a new round, this time without engaging the safety. When the first kids appeared—a boy and a girl—he sighted on the boy and fired, jerking some at the recoil. The boy went down and didn’t move.

Jack hoped the girl would run, but she didn’t. She raised a pistol and fired as fast as she could.

BAM BAM BAM!

Jack grabbed Lisa and pulled her back around the corner under a shower of stinging splinters.

“Over there,” she said, pointing across the street at a set of dumpsters nestled in a concrete niche.

Wordlessly, they took up positions on either side of the one labeled “Cardboard Only” and aimed their weapons. There was a terrible smell coming from it—one he recognized from the houses he’d searched for car keys. Supposedly, Greg had dumped two bodies here from the first assault on the Welcome Center.

Not ten seconds later, armed pursuers came boiling around both corners of the building.

Jack didn’t hesitate this time—he ruthlessly cut them down. Loud as it was, he could hear Lisa’s shots as well. Boys and girls fell dead in the grass. Two who survived the onslaught fired back, their bullets clanging loudly against the steel of the dumpsters. The rest ran away. For the ones that kept firing, he spared none. The shooters quickly fell to the devastating accuracy of the rifle, and soon the field was empty but for the lingering haze of gun smoke and a lawn littered with broken bodies.

The muscles in Jack’s neck tightened of their own volition, like when he’d once had a stomach virus, and suddenly he was on his knees throwing up. Lisa came over and held him.

Between heaves Jack said, “Can’t … stop … puking.”

He attempted a humorless laugh, trying to be strong for her. For
them
. Shackleton wouldn’t have thrown up. What a disaster for the crew of the Endurance if he had.

“Shh, Jack, just take it easy. We’re okay now,” she said. “You did what you had to. Those idiots would have killed us.”

A minute later, when the spasms had passed, he said, “Was it like this for you the first time?”

Lisa wiped his mouth with her coat sleeve, her expression blank.

“Different,” she said.

He waited for her to elaborate. When she didn’t, he forced his gaze back to the lawn on the other side of the road. Near one of the still shapes, a little sign poked up admonishing people to clean up after their dogs. Five lives, and a sixth around back. Kids who should have been talking about football and YouTube and “doing it” and whatever nonsense flitted through their stupid, cabbage brains.

“Come on,” he said, getting up. “Let’s go see.”

* * *

T
he entrance
to the Welcome Center was littered with broken glass, and what glass remained in the doors was riddled with bullet holes. The doors hadn’t been locked, but the gang had shot them up anyway.

“I think they’re the same ones from last time,” Lisa said, nudging a large piece of glass with her sneaker. “Trying to prove a point.”

The first thing Jack noticed on entering were droplets of blood scattered in the foyer, but the entryway was free of anything but glass and bullet holes. No bodies. The party room was similarly shot up, with stuffing from pillows scattered everywhere. No bodies, and no blood.

It didn’t add up.

“No sign of the children,” he said. “Or Pete.”

Lisa went to check the rental office. Moments later she called out, “Jack, come look!”

The room had been smashed up. There were scratches and gouges from gunshots on the face of the safe—and a thin trail of blood leading to the entryway.

“They shot the safe,” she said. “Looks like a bullet bounced off and hit one of them.”

“Least they didn’t get it open,” he said.

She tried the dial and swore. “Those … those
idiots!
”

“What now?” Jack said.

“The stupid dial’s broken! I can’t get in.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“Our
food’s
in there!”

He wanted to reach out and reassure her but thought she’d bite his arm off.

“Your brother’s still out there,” he said. “That’s way more important.”

That seemed to snap her back. “Greg—oh, God! Surely he must have heard the shots.”

Thinking of the bullet-riddled glass and busted safe, he said, “
We
didn’t hear them.” It must have happened when they were inside with the girl and her dad.

Lisa opened her mouth to reply, and then the sound of an automobile came rumbling from outside. Raising her pistol, she looked at him, her face angry and set.

“I’ll check. You stay here,” Jack said and crept to the entryway. A moment later, he called back, “It’s Pete!”

Pete got out of the car and said, “What happened to the door? We heard shots. Are those bullet holes?”

Jack said, “Never mind that. Are the children with you?”

“What? Yeah, back seat. And I got that stuff you wanted.” He stared fearfully around as if expecting gunmen to parachute in at any moment.

Quickly, Jack explained everything that had happened.

“Have you seen my brother?” Lisa said.

Pete shook his head. “We left before them. I found lots of great stuff.”

“I don’t care!” she yelled and stormed back inside.

Pete recoiled as if slapped. “What the heck’s her problem?”

“Never mind,” Jack said. “So what’d you get?”

Pete smiled broadly. “A little food, some nice backpacks. Some pills like you asked for. But check it out: there’s a guy five buildings down. He locked his door and left. We
definitely
want this guy.”

“What’s he look like? I’ll talk to him,” Jack said. He didn’t know what to feel more pleased about. That there was an unaffiliated teenager nearby who wasn’t comatose with grief, or that Pete was using words like
we
when talking about their group.

“Tall, black, big muscles,” Pete said. “Don’t worry, I’ll take you there.”

Jack shook his head. “We still need to wait for Greg.”

Pete stared at him blankly, then nodded in realization. “That girl’s brother.”

“Her name’s Lisa.”

“Oh yeah. What do we do with the stuff I got?”

“Leave it for now. I need you to grab your blanket and give me a hand.”

Pete ran in to get it. When he came back, they went to the scene of the gun battle. His eyes widened in horror at the grisly scene.

“Oh, Jesus!” he said, cringing away when Jack searched the nearest body.

“Just lay the blanket down and stack whatever you find,” Jack said, coming back with a small caliber pistol and an extra magazine.

Pete dropped the blanket in a heap, shaking his head.

“No way,” he said. “I’m not touching dead people!” Without warning, he ran back to the Welcome Center.

Jack was both irritated and relieved. Irritated because he could have used the help. Relieved because now he could cringe his way through the ghoulish task without anyone witnessing his distress. A leader had to project invincibility, even if it was just make believe.

Five minutes later, he’d gathered eight handguns, maybe a hundred loose bullets, six more magazines, and no food. The bodies were too large and too many for him to haul to the dumpsters and dispose of by himself. When Greg got back, Jack would ask him to help. He didn’t want the little kids finding them.

Pete’s haul from the apartments was considerably more lucrative. He’d gotten a pile of key rings, some fishing gear for Jack, gold chains for Tony, a few pistols and boxes of ammo, and a small assortment of boxed and canned food. He’d also brought back a trash bag full of prescription pills, none of which were recognizable as antibiotics. There were a good deal of pain meds, though. Jack stowed those away in his almost-empty pack, left the rest in the garbage bag, and gave that to Pete to dispose of. He didn’t want any of the children getting into it and thinking it was candy.

“Any trouble getting in the apartments?” Jack said.

“Most of the doors were already open,” Pete said, eyeing him warily, as if any moment Jack would ask him to touch a dead body. “Used the crowbar on the others. Really hard—it’s super heavy.”

“What about apartments with dead people?”

Pete shook his head. “Mandy went in those. She doesn’t mind the smell.”

It bothered him that Pete was so quick to risk the girl’s health and sanity rather than do it himself, but held off saying anything so soon after the attack. They had enough to worry about.

He found Lisa in the rental office working on the safe.

“How’s it looking?” he said.

She’d removed the broken dial from the door and was busily turning the metal rod with a pair of pliers.

“Not as bad as I thought,” she said. “It still spins. But without the dial, there’s no way to measure each turn. Maybe with some kind of disk and a little superglue …” She turned back to the safe, twisting the rod around slowly, then sighed and stood up. “So yeah, that’s what I need.”

“Should be easy enough,” Jack said.

A commotion sounded from outside.

“They’re here, they’re here!” Mandy yelled on the way out the door.

Jack and Lisa emerged to a scene as joyful as it was disheartening. Tony and Greg had definitely brought in new people to fill their ranks. Five of them. The problem was: most were between four and seven years old, and the oldest looked to be about eight or nine.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Greg said when he saw their faces, “but what could I do? This place we found was full of them. They were wandering in and out. They were starving.”

They certainly appeared to be starving. Skin and bones, the lot of them, with dirty clothes and grimy faces.

Quietly Jack said, “We can’t save everyone, man. It’ll be hard enough saving ourselves.”

“Yeah, I know, but … oh, jeez,” Greg said, taking in the shattered front doors. “What happened here?”