Ravaged Land - A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (9 page)

“Do you think Sienna’s all right by herself?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think she’ll be fine, its clothes what could go wrong?” he said with a handsome grin as he backed away from us, leaving Ryan and I in awkward silence.

I tried to keep quiet. The longer it went on the harder I found it to keep my lips pinched together, “I’m sorry if you think I overstepped my bounds asking everyone to come with me.”

Ryan just shook his head.

“Oh, so it’s going to be like that? Really?”

“You think I’d be mad about that?” Ryan said squinting at me.

I shrugged.

“Oh, so it’s like that huh?” he said smirking.

The moment our eyes connected I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be mad or laugh. I didn’t get a chance to do either. Our conversation was interrupted when we heard Sienna’s shrill scream.

I ran as fast as my feet would move towards the clothing department with Ryan at my heels. There was another set of footsteps close behind us. I had a hunch it was probably Dean catching up, but there was no time to check.

I stopped dead in my tracks when I spotted her frozen in place. A big burly man had his arm wrapped around her shoulders and was covering her mouth with his hand. He hadn’t seen us approach, we’d all ducked down under the clothing racks just in time, but he had definitely heard our stomping feet. He spun around in our general direction, “Come out, or I’ll ssslit her pretty little throat,” he roared.

Chapter seven.

“Come out, come out wherever you are!” Spit misted out of his mouth as he spoke. He chuckled nervously, he didn’t know who was hiding and it was apparent that he was a little skittish because of that. “I’m not going to wait forever!” he bellowed.

I looked at Ryan and he looked at Dean. No one said it out loud, but we knew at least one of us had to stay hidden. Before either Ryan or Dean could stand to reveal themselves, I popped up with my hands in the air. It had made more sense to keep the stronger of the three of us hidden in case things got out of hand. “Here I am. Please just let her go.”

He snorted, “Don’t tell me what to do, I’lls let her go if and when I’m ready. How many more of you little brats are there? And don’t even thinkss about lying,” he said pointing the knife at me briefly before putting it back to Sienna’s neck. He had wobbled and slurred a few of his words. The bald guy with the bowling ball gut was probably here to loot the booze department although it sounded as if he already had. Maybe he had a drinking problem, or maybe all the devastation and destruction caused one. I’m not sure I could have blamed him for the latter.

“It’s just me,” I said trying my best to sound convincing.

“Now,” his eyes narrowing, “that, my friend, is a lie.” He pushed the knife against Sienna’s throat and she stiffened. Her tears streaked trails through the caked-on dust on her cheeks.

“OK, OK, you got me,” I said raising my palms up towards him, “there are two others, in the food department. But it’s just me and her here, we were looking for new clothes.”

“You sure make a lot of noise,” he said with his eyes jerking around still skeptical. “End of the world and you two thought you’d do a little shopping? Using that five finger discount?” he smirked only amusing himself.

“Just wanting clean clothes, sir.” I threw in a sir hoping to throw him off guard with my politeness, as if I could possibly respect this knife wielding jerk, which of course I didn’t. “What is it you want from us?”

He thought for a moment, like I was a genie and this was his big chance to come up with his three wishes. It was clear he hadn’t had a real plan when he grabbed her. He had probably just reacted thinking that maybe he was in danger and did the first thing he thought of, holding her hostage in case he could use her as a bargaining chip. He scratched his head with his knife hand.

Before I realized what was happening Ryan flew out from a clothing rack near the big guy and knocked them both down to the ground. I hadn’t seen or heard him sneaking towards them. I quickly scanned the area for Dean. He popped up from wherever he had been and was sweeping Sienna up and away from the drunk guy. Ryan’s fist came back and then forward fast, and hard. The thud of him hitting the man in the jaw made me cringe. The man lifted his knife hand but Ryan was faster and sober, he swung again and the man dropped the knife. His chunky arm flopped to the ground. I thought Dean would grab the knife, but it was Sienna who scooped it up and crouched down by the man like she was some crazed Amazonian woman.

It was her turn to press the knife against his neck, “I should slit your throat you poor excuse for a human being!” she hissed. She angrily pressed again causing a little cut no larger than if he’d cut himself shaving, “But I’m not a bad person, so I won’t. Get out of my sight before I change my mind,” she threatened.

The man stood, wobbled and shook his finger at them, but then instead of saying whatever he was thinking, he changed his mind. He spat blood on the floor and weaved his way out of the store not looking back. It almost seemed as though he had already forgotten what had just happened. Sienna didn’t put the knife down until he was out of sight.

“Um, whoa?” Dean said holding his hands up, looking both shocked and impressed by his little sister. He seemed to be wondering who this new girl was, and so was I.

“I second that!”

“You don’t mess with the Coats,” she said with an evil grin, “we need weapons.”

“We do,” Ryan agreed, “but this is Target. We can choose between a shovel and a bright orange squirt gun.”

“Or… more knives,” Sienna said still grinning. Instead of looking scared by what had just happened, she was proud of herself whereas I was just happy I was holding my panic attack in.

“Knives it is. At least for now. Let’s go,” Ryan said nodding towards housewares.

It was possible the knife section had already been ransacked, after all, the overweight drunk guy had been carrying one. Even he had at least, at one point, had enough wits about him to get a knife for protection, unlike us. Apparently we had been oblivious to the potential for danger. We grabbed a Guy Fieri knife set. Each knife in the set had a protective sheath. We also took a single packed up chef’s knife. Ryan tore it out of its packaging and dropped it to the floor. He wrapped the knife tightly in a kitchen towel before placing it in the back of his pants.

“A paring knife? I think I deserve better than a paring knife,” Sienna whined.

“It’s all that’s left,” Dean said putting one of the larger knives into his backpack. The other two he held would go to Seth and Owen.

I could feel Sienna’s eyes on me. My knife was already packed away, but she was probably thinking about how unfair it was that I had gotten the better knife. After how she had handled herself she probably figured that she deserved the real knife and that I should get the paring knife. I didn’t offer her th better knife, after all she still had the pocket knife from the drunk man. She’d already threatened someone and won with the pocket knife, I would have been useless with either the pocket or paring knife for that matter.

“We’ll get better weapons when we can,” Ryan said trying to keep things calm and cool. “Let’s get Owen and Seth and find somewhere to stay for the night.”

Owen and Seth had gathered up two bags full of food before we’d found them. The rest of us filled our packs with as much food, Gatorade and water as we could fit inside. On top of what we still had left from the shelter, we would still have more than enough for the night. As we left the Target store, we talked about where we should go. We all agreed to leave our small home town behind and head over to the neighboring and much larger city. If traveling by car, which we wouldn’t be, it was only about a ten minute drive. We weren’t more than two blocks from Target when we heard the gunshot ring out.

* * *

The shot was so close that Seth dropped to the ground for cover. Ryan and Owen moved in front of me and Sienna protectively while Dean crouched down somehow already wielding his shiny new knife. Laughter erupted from a nearby barely surviving bush.

“Seriously? Who brings a knife to a gun party, brother?” A larger male, probably twenty-five or so stepped into view chuckling. He was going on the assumption, and rightfully so, that we had nothing more lethal than the knife.

The large guy loosely pointed his gun in our direction. He was twice the width of Seth and a good five inches taller than Dean. The beast was built like a truck, solid and he wasn’t afraid of us. Even with a gun, there was still five of us and only one of him. I guessed he wasn’t alone. As if he had read my mind he whistled and his minions emerged from seemingly random hiding spots.

They were quite a gang. I almost felt as if I was looking at a carnival freak show but for some reason that made me even more nervous. There was a girl who was even taller than their leader and toothpick thin. She was holding a shotgun lazily against her shoulder, the look on her face told me she knew how to use it and she would if she was told to. There were two short boys that appeared to be twins. Each one with a matching holstered pistol on the opposite hip of the other. They looked like a mirror image of each other right down to their matching leather vests and cowboy hats. If there hadn’t been a gun pointed in my direction I would have laughed at the country-western version of Tweedledee and Tweedledum. The last gang member to reveal himself was perfectly normal looking which made him stand out even more than the others. He looked to be our age, with a black eye, and matching black hair that flopped down hiding his eyes. He looked familiar. Did I know him? I glanced at the others to see if they had recognized him but they didn’t appear to. When his eyes met mine, it hit me. I knew those eyes. I recognized him and he recognized me too.

It was the boy from the day of the storms, the one I had made eye contact with when Ryan had pulled me to safety. He looked beat up, disheveled and depressed. I was happy to see he had survived, but he didn’t seem as though he was. I wanted to ask him what his story was, but that wasn’t going to happen. He was the enemy. He too was wielding a gun.

“This is going to be quick and painless if you do what I say. Then you folks can be off on your merry little way,” the leader said breaking the silence after we had all sized each other up. “All you have to do,” he said smirking at his pals, “is hand over your backpacks.”

“Aww come on,” Owen wailed frustrated. “Dude, the store is still full of all kinds of shit, go and take what you want!”

“I could do that… but you see, you’ve all already done that for me! What a time saver! It must be my lucky day!” He grinned showing his yellow, cigarette stained teeth, “Come on now, toss them over, one at a time to Shorty.” Shorty, the tall girl, stepped forward a couple feet and gestured for us to get on with it and give her the bags.

“And if we don’t?” Owen asked sounding ready for a fight. A fight we’d most certainly lose.

The leader stroked his gun like a pet cat. He then pointed it at a stop sign off to our right and let a shot ring out against the sign. He completely missed the sign but the loud pop from the gun was enough.

“They don’t even know how to aim,” I muttered under my breath.

“We can’t risk it,” Ryan said. I knew he was right, we were bigger targets, maybe Shorty or the other kids actually knew how to aim. I tried to think on my feet, there had to be a way to get out of here with all of our gear. Ryan must have heard my gears spinning. “We can just get more stuff, take out your knife when I go, put it in your pants and cover it with your shirt, do it fast,” he instructed and stepped in front of me. He took his time pretending to fumble the bag before he ultimately tossed it towards Shorty. Sienna did the same with her paring knife. I slipped out the little piece of note paper I’d taken from my house, I fumbled and almost dropped the pack but thankfully no one noticed.

Owen and Seth tossed their bags over as well. When Dean stopped up to throw his, the leader coughed, “Wait, I want your knife too. But don’t be cute, slide it over.” He sighed and reluctantly did as he was told knowing that Target was out of knives.

Lastly, Sienna and I threw our packs over to the rag-tag gang. I was so frustrated to have to lose everything we had gathered, including my keepsake key.

Shorty slung a pack over her shoulder and tossed the remaining packs to the others. My frenemy got my pack. He looked at me knowing it was mine. And just like that all of my things were gone. My key, my school notebooks, my water and my food, all of it, gone. Maybe this was some form of karma for me not having helped him, not that I ever had a real choice in the matter. But maybe karma didn’t agree with me and it was going to hold me responsible. I had to pay the price until karma was satisfied. It decided I needed to make things right and the way to start was to give up my supplies to him.

“Thank you kindly boys and girls,” said the gross leader, “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be on our way. Nice doing business with you all.” With that they walked away down the street towards the broken down school.

“Let’s get new backpacks and new stuff and get out of here,” Dean said running his hand through his damp from the heat hair. He seemed both pissed off and nervous to be out in the open without anything to protect us. “There could be much worse people out here than those circus freaks.”