Carol's Daughter

Carol knelt in the shadows, hiding from the Scavengers. It was difficult to do, as the Scavengers patrolled with heat-vision goggles. Three of them went by in a pack, digging into piles of rubble to retrieve any salvageable gear. She held her breath, not wanting any noise to give her away. Sid had been gone two days, and already her heart neared breaking. He’d knowingly gone to his death.

Darkness cloaked her well from the Scavengers, but she didn’t feel comfortable with them this close. All they had to do was look up. Carol had managed to climb up when she’d heard them approach. Here, their threat dominated.

Scavengers roamed in packs of between three and five, one the lead, another an enforcer, and the rest technicians or additional muscle. Skill took a back seat to brute strength when it came to disassembling equipment for reuse.

Depending on their mission, sometimes that “equipment” was human.

This particular contingent strayed from their path for minutes only, found nothing of great value, and moved on. She sighed, relieved they’d spent so little time. Emma waited back at the compound for her. Her daughter proved her resourcefulness time and again as the bombs dropped.

The war everyone feared had come to pass as tensions rose between the global superpowers. No one could envision that they wouldn’t be the ones to strike first. Carol remembered the day well. Who could forget the world’s end?

In the waning hours of that afternoon, Emma had been picking marigold flowers in the park while Sid and Carol had promised her dinner at McDonald’s later. She eagerly anticipated her sixth birthday party with several of her school friends.

While Carol and Sid chatted, light had bloomed to the south, filling the sky with odd shadows that reflected off the low clouds. A minute later, the concussive blast knocked the three of them to the ground. Car alarms had blared all around. Sid immediately swept them up and led them into a nearby building, looking for any shelter. Emma had clutched her marigolds.

Now, Carol worried that Sid wouldn’t make it back before more death rained from the sky. Her mother had warned her that another strike could come at any time. She knew she’d be alone with Emma now. Everything had changed in just those few moments. Years had bred new survival instincts, and made scavengers of them all.

***

Emma peeked through the faded curtains and out the broken window of the small underground apartment her mom called “the compound,” concerned that her mother hadn’t returned. More sirens wailed, signaling further insanity. She loathed that sound. Nothing terrified her more.

She’d ensured that the door's bolts were secure and that the chair propped up under the knob felt solid. A shotgun and two pistols occupied the center table, and in the corner Carol had set two small cots, uncomfortable to sleep on but easy to take with them. For the last three months the two of them had been nomadic, ever searching for a safer house between safe houses, Scavengers of a different sort. Just trying to survive.

Emma missed the pretty dresses her mom had once bought her, dressed now in cargo pants and cheap boots they’d taken from a shoe store. Mom wanted them on the move. Winter would be soon, and they had been traveling south, only staying for a few weeks at a time. She called this place home for now, because it had been the last place she’d seen her dad. Mom had sent dad with something urgent to her grandparents. It had taken them two months on foot to even get near enough to reach them.

Someone jiggled the doorknob.

“Open up!”

Emma gasped, then that same someone pounded on the door. “I said open UP!” She had no real place to hide, this room was more cellar than anything else, bare of any true amenities. No one should be coming here. Emma scrambled to conceal herself.

A gun blast destroyed the lock, and two men forced the door open, shining a flashlight into the recesses of the room. Emma cowered under a cot. Nerves shook her body.

“Someone’s here,” a deep voice said. “This chair was propped against the door. Find them.”

Scavengers! Her worst fear, a five pack. They swept into the room with ruthless efficiency. The enforcer took the guns from the table, slipping them into a duffel bag he kept across his back. He already had a shotgun out, fanning the room. Take, or be taken.

Two smaller Scavengers, one male and one female peered into cabinets, shining flashlights everywhere. Emma had managed to throw a blanket on top of herself when she climbed under the cot. She fervently hoped it looked like a discarded rag.

“Alice, check those cots, John, the bathroom.”

Emma couldn’t stop the tears from coming as Alice approached. She sobbed once, unable to hold it back. Alice whipped her head to Emma’s hiding spot, yanked the cot up, and tore the blanket away. “Got one,” she said.

***

Carol saw the door had been busted open as she approached. Shit, shit, shit, she thought, panicking. Let her be safe, please!

Gone. The guns gone. Emma gone. The cots gone. Everything gone. Through her tears, she retrieved the few things from storage that had remained hidden under the broken sink, taped up and out of sight. A secondary pistol and a sheathed knife, with two clips of ammunition. A marigold pressed into a birthday card.

Not only did she have to dodge Scavengers in the street, and soldiers between cities and towns, they’d managed to corner her daughter and abducted her. Now she threw these items into her satchel along with a tightly rolled blanket, a plastic bottle she used for water, and some wrapped protein bars she’d found for herself and Emma. No time to dwell on things now. Carol needed to find her daughter.

She departed as soon as she’d retrieved these items. No point in waiting around. Patrols came at random intervals, since Scavengers didn’t have a centralized command structure. Often they were nomads, just like she and Emma. Carol knew where the nearest group hid, since she’d scouted this area when they’d moved into the compound. The last five years had taught her to keep on her guard.

Stalking between the shadows of buildings, Carol crept through the mostly abandoned town. The main Scavenger hangout nestled deep within an old mine, something they could defend with ease. She’d not be able to get into that, if that’s where they’d taken Emma. Her best bet was the support buildings that surrounded the mine entrance, but that too might be occupied.

No lights shone from any building. The power grid had been decimated by the war, and only some old generators provided power now, if they could be found. Scavengers wanted their privacy, so even the mine entrance remained devoid of light. Taking a deep breath, she approached the first building.

***

They’d bound her hands and feet with plastic zip ties. Emma couldn’t be more elated, but first things first, she needed to get her shoes off. They’d left her on the floor, mouth bound with a dirty rag, with her hands tied together. The Scavengers had not restrained her more, and that was their mistake.

Emma caught her boot and pulled, worried she’d tied them too tightly. Today she’d been lazy, not expecting a need to go anywhere, and the Scavengers didn’t pay much attention to how she’d dressed. Working at it for a few minutes, she managed to pull one boot off by pulling the heel against the floor. She rolled around, trying to remain quiet, but also to position herself to put a hand on it.

Once she’d managed to grab it, she untied the boot. With careful focus Emma removed the lace, re-tied just through the top, and gripped the boot between her knees and managed to get the free end to pinch between the gag and her teeth. She worked her hands up and down the cord, sawing through it in just a few moments time, freeing up her hands. She felt better now that she could remove the gag and had more dexterity.

In less than five minutes, she’d freed her hands, sawed through the bindings on her feet, and started massaging some life back to them. They had locked the door of course, but the window could be unlatched from inside, so that was her play. Sliding it up slowly, she risked a peek outside. She saw no one, so Emma climbed out, dropping to the ground, hiding in the very shadows her mother used nearby to seek her.

***

Carol watched a man and woman approach a nearby building and fiddle with the lock.

“She’s escaped!” the woman yelled, sounding the alarm.

“Shit,” Carol swore under her breath. Now she had a direction to go, knowing where they’d put her daughter. Reversing direction, she rounded the other side of the building, keeping behind some bushes as three others fanned out, guns hunting for a target.

Two more exited from the mine entrance with flashlights. Where they’d obtained batteries, Carol could only guess. Seven of them, was that it? Her odds of rescuing her daughter had gone down drastically enough. She watched them split up, walking around alone. She pulled the knife from its sheathe and began to hunt.

Carol took one from behind, his life ended before he even knew she was there, and hid him in the bushes. Six. She took his gun as well. Thank you, Sid, she thought, grateful for the training she had shared with her husband, stalking each other when society had collapsed, and they had to rely on their skills to survive. Even if it meant killing.

The next started looking for his partner, and met the same fate nearby. Carol wiped the blood off on his jacket. They’d both met silent ends. Her luck streak needed to hold out.

“Alice, have you seen Mike or Luca?” one of the men called out.

Of course…

“No, they went to search near the galley,” came the woman’s reply.

Carol pressed further into the shadows. “I’ll go check on them,” the man said.

A door banged in the distance, maybe thirty yards away. Several feet went running. A woman stepped around the corner, face to face with Carol.

A gun rang out. Carol screamed.

***

Emma watched the gun flash from her hiding point, and covered her mouth to keep from screaming. She recognized her mother’s voice and saw the body fall.

No, no, no, her mind raced. She couldn’t believe she’d just watched her mother die. Feet redirected and ran away from her, toward the gunshot. This was her moment to escape. She slipped under a nearby fence, and recognized her mother’s bag propped against a tree.

Inside, a gun and two ammo clips, some food and water, a blanket, and the birthday card containing the marigold from her sixth birthday. The day the world had ended. Off she slipped, away from her captors, away from her mother, and into solitude.

***

Story continues in Carol's Price