Ravaged Land - A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (25 page)

After everything that had just happened, Ryan was a little more alert for a short while. Maybe he could sense how upset I was. He watched me through little slits that threatened to stay closed with each bump on the road. At one point, he weakly asked if I was OK and all I could do was force out my best attempt at a brave smile. Once he fell asleep, I tried to get some rest as well, my brain needed the down time, my body needed to recover from the surge of adrenaline. Every ounce of me needed it. Sleep would help me process and move forward, at least that’s what I told myself. Forward was the only way to go in this new world anyway. Dwelling was not an option.

* * *

The next twenty-four hours passed without a hitch. It had been an unusual stretch of smooth sailing, and thankfully much needed for everyone’s peace of mind. The others all seemed to return to what was our normal, it was as if nothing had even happened. It was like Owen never even shot anyone. When my thoughts weren’t about Ryan, they were about Owen pulling that trigger. I’d hear that gunshot and scene play out over and over again, trying to figure out what I should have done, like it was a puzzle I had to solve. I should be happy he was protecting us, cut and dry self-defense and all, but it was still a human life. I couldn’t shake this guilt of being party to murder. What if he laid there shouting for help for hours before he bled to death? A long painful death just for shooting at us and accidentally hitting his friend in the process. As usual my thoughts became overwhelming and I’d have to stuff them deep down inside me hoping they’d get stuck with all the rest. Then I forced myself to change my thoughts and put them back on Ryan and his desperate need for help.

Today was a productive drive. We stopped only when necessary and made really good progress. Owen and Dean switched on and off and they both drove long and fast before needing a break. I knew they were doing it for Ryan. They saw his increasing need for help. It’s not like it was a secret, it was obvious to anyone who saw him. We all saw the wound spreading, the infection growing. They listened when I’d read his temperature from the inaccurate thermometer. It stayed a pretty solid 105, but what it would be on a better thermometer was anyone’s guess. Maybe it would have been higher, or maybe it would have been lower, but it didn’t matter. Either way he had a bad fever and needed help. They didn’t say much other than a ‘Sorry Ros,’ or maybe just a hand on my shoulder with a simple ‘let’s go.’ And then we’d be back on the road in no time, going as fast as they felt was safe. As for Dean, I’m sure his thoughts went back to seeing Seth close himself in the closet, burning down our shelter, leaving us helpless. It was a terrible thing to happen, although, if he hadn’t burned down the shelter we wouldn’t have ever found out about this HOME place in Alaska. Thankfully Ryan’s mind hasn’t turned to that awful place Seth’s had, at least it hadn’t yet.

We all wanted to help Ryan any way we could, but there wasn’t much we could do other than try to get him to HOME and hope there was help there. We all owed Ryan and we all cared about him. If it hadn’t been for Ryan none of us would probably be alive right now. He was the one who pulled us to safety in his family’s shelter. In my case literally. He couldn’t die. We couldn’t let that happen. That would just be wrong on so many levels. A person who does something like that doesn’t deserve this. It wasn’t fair.

He only had the wound because he was trying to save the rest of us, again. He shouldn’t have to be in this pain and, on a selfish note, I don’t think I could get by without him. I need him. I love him. He needed to get well.

* * *

We had passed cars before on rare occasions. I could count on both hands how many cars we’d passed on our journey so far. They were few and far between. We’d pass, maybe look at each other to see what the others looked like, guess at what they were doing or where they were going, but everyone would go about their business not interfering with the other. Maybe out of fear, or maybe something else, I didn’t have a guess. That’s why I didn’t think anything of it when I saw a pair of headlights in the darkness coming towards us down the road.

I think we had just entered Alaska about an hour or so ago. It had to be around midnight when we saw the headlights in the distance. As it got closer I could see it was a big, beefy pick-up truck raised up high on its unnecessarily big wheels. It had four blindingly bright lights lined up on top of the cab. It was a noisy truck, not a bad kind of noisy like it was dying but the kind some people would do on purpose. We passed each other, and they appeared to slow down as they watched us go by, attempting to see into our tinted windows, a feat that would be quite difficult during the night.

This time meeting another car was different. This time they didn’t keep going on their own way. They made a big U-turn and came up behind us fast, shining their big lights into our SUV. Dean adjusted his side mirror so he could focus on driving.

“What are they doing?” Sienna asked nervously.

“I’m not sure,” Dean said with both hands on the wheel, not changing his driving in any way. He maintained his same speed, not slowing down as one might naturally do. I thought he was trying to make it appear as though we wouldn’t be phased by a big truck trying to bully us. Owen slid his gun onto his leg, trying to keep it hidden but I saw the light from their headlights bounce off of it. I wanted to scold him and tell him to put it away, that he was only going to hurt someone, but I didn’t.

The driver tapped the accelerator. The engine roared as it jerked at our rear bumper making an attempt to intimidate us. There was no doubt about what they were doing. It seemed like they were sizing us up, and they would be able to count our heads through the tinted windows using their overly powerful top lights. Then they sped up jerking forward again, only this time they tapped our back bumper causing us to lightly jolt forward.

“Did they just hit us?” I asked rhetorically.

“Yeah, yeah they did,” Dean said.

“What did we do? Why are they doing this?” Sienna whined.

And they bumped us again. And then again. Then they backed off a little, only to speed forward to hit us again, harder this time. We weren’t prepared for such a big hit, none of us were ready and our heads jerked forward with the force.

“Everyone have their seat belts on?” Dean asked. I figured he expected it would get worse, and I did too.

“Yeah, everyone except Ryan,” I said with a frown, knowing there wasn’t much we could do about that.

The truck had backed off a little, following still much too closely. My whole body was tense. One thing I was thankful for was having a nearly full tank of gas. If we would have had to stop for gas things could have gotten bad. For all I knew they still might, but it was one less thing to worry about. They zoomed up again and hit the left side of the bumper causing Dean to swerve, but he managed to keep control and stay on the road.

They weren’t letting up. The truck sped up and pushed our SUV forward, pushing, pushing, pushing. They were being aggressive, trying to run us off the road, but what I didn’t know was why they were terrorizing us. We hadn’t done anything. I had my gun, but after what had happened at the last stop, I knew I didn’t want to have to use it. It was bad enough that I felt I’d have to carry around all these bad feelings from having witnessed what happened. But to actually have to do something like that myself was unfathomable. Even when I threatened the biker with the gun, I had no intention of actually using it, I wasn’t capable. It was just that simple.

The truck came to an abrupt stop and flicked off their lights but I could feel they were still there. I was certain I heard the noisy truck, but they were quite a bit behind. Then it gradually got louder and louder as they sped up alongside of us with their lights still off.

I couldn’t see inside their truck it was too dark. It was unfortunate that we didn’t know who we were dealing with. They swerved at the side of our SUV causing Dean to jerk away in an attempt to avoid them, but they pulled back like they were toying with us. They swerved at us again… this time they hit us. Dean turned the wheel left and then right and managed to steady us and keep the SUV on the road. They swerved into us again right after Dean had corrected the car from the last hit. This time was harder than the last. When Dean lost control I heard Sienna scream, though she sounded miles away. My body was tensed up so tight bracing for impact that my ears had muffled all sound and possibly put them on a time delay. He was steering and counter-steering, doing everything he could to keep us from rolling. He managed to stop the SUV in an upright position, however we were in the ditch facing the wrong direction. The car was fine, and we were fine. Well, we weren’t fine but we were alive, and the car was probably pretty dented up.

We sat there in the dark in complete silence, no one had even taken a breath yet, the truck appeared to be gone.

“Everyone OK?” Owen asked. I made some kind of quiet breathy noise to show that I was alive. The others grunted out their own noises, Ryan said nothing.

I sucked in air when the truck lights popped on only a few feet in front of the car. It was like the truck itself was staring at us with its big headlight eyes. I was temporarily blinded from the unexpected bright lights. They revved their engine at us and jerk forward a few times as if they were going to ram us head on. I noticed out of the corner of my eye two vehicles honking and speeding down the other side of the road. It looked as if they were in a big hurry to get somewhere and were trying to get the attention of the truck, maybe alerting them to something. The truck blew its horn back, some sort of southern tune and sped out of the ditch down the road after the other cars leaving us alone.

I turned to check on Ryan. He was still laying in the seat but his leg had flopped down, he didn’t have the energy to pull it back up himself. His eyes were closed but I could tell part of him had been with us. He didn’t have the strength to keep his eyes open, much less talk.

“Is he OK?” Owen said looking back at me over his shoulder.

“I think so,” I whispered back. I took my seatbelt off and reached over the back of my seat to pull his leg up and try to reposition him. Sienna could tell I was struggling a bit and without a word turned and helped me get him back into a comfortable position.

Dean didn’t wait for anyone to tell him to go, he started the car and put it back on the road driving as if nothing had happened. He drove the rest of the night not asking for Owen to take a turn until we stopped in the morning.

In the light I noticed that the terrain was different the closer we got to the HOME. There were actually patches of green grass, shrubbery with buds and leaves that were actually green, even the trees were starting to sprout leaves. Things were growing and there were colors of life around, it wasn’t just the faded earthy browns of dying plants. I hadn’t really given it a lot of thought until that morning, but the air was crisp and much cooler. The further north we traveled the cooler it was getting. Seth would have loved it.

It wasn’t just dry dust and dirt anymore. Although there were still patches of it scattered about, enough to remind me that it hadn’t been some sort of awful dream, and that all the destruction really had happened.

I opened the car windows so Ryan got some fresh air during his bandage changing time. For the brief and random moments he was somewhat present with me, he seemed to enjoy the brisk air. He didn’t try to talk about what had happened last night, I couldn’t decide if he hadn’t remembered, didn’t have the energy, or just didn’t see any point in talking about it.

Dean came bouncing out of the gas station, “Sign inside says HOME Checkpoint 60 miles. I have no idea what that means exactly but I guess we are getting closer to finding out. Closer to help.” He was in pretty good spirits considering he hadn’t gotten any real sleep in some time. Maybe it was the thought of possibly finding help for Ryan in less than an hour that fueled him.

I smiled at him from my lonely spot behind the tire. The place I went to feel sorry for myself while watching for approaching vehicles.

“We’ll get him help,” Dean said, promising something he couldn’t promise. He was trying to make me feel better, to keep my spirits up, but he and I knew all too well what would happen to Ryan. We’d seen it before. As far as I was concerned this virus, disease or whatever it was would eventually take over his brain. Seth had been weak, but when he lost it that night he suddenly had the strength to do what he did. Ryan was still himself thankfully, probably because his wound started smaller, it was just taking longer to take over.

“I hope so,” I said burying my head between my knees.

“I have a good feeling… I think he’ll get taken care of.” He sat next to me which was unusual. They usually like to leave me alone during my break downs, but this time Dean just sat with me. Letting me feel whatever I wanted to feel and just stayed with me. It actually felt kind of nice, really nice, and I rested my head against his shoulder. I felt the tears fall out from my eyes like giant rain drops of sadness, I wiped them away quickly.

“Ros, he saved me. He saved all of us, I’ll do what I can, OK?” he said lifting my chin so my eyes would see the seriousness in his.

“Yes, I know,” I said letting my head fall weakly back on his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around me and just kept me in that half hug until Owen and Sienna were ready to be back on the road.