Darkest Storm Read online

  He frowned and sighed. “I knew you might be trying to get back to your apartment today.”

  “Hatty,” they said as the family turned to stare at them in shock.

  “My cat,” Michelle said. “She doesn’t have enough food. It might be too cold there.”

  When they gaped at her she only offered, “I can’t leave her to die. I would never forgive myself.”

  “Most likely no cabs into the city,” Bob said.

  “I know. I can’t call one anyway.”

  “But we have the truck,” he replied.

  “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “So what? You’ll walk?”

  She frowned. She hadn’t really thought about it. Michelle just knew she had to try.

  “Are you sure you want to go?” he asked, and she nodded. “Then I’ll go with you.”

  Carry grabbed his hand. “The hell you are.”

  He smiled and leaned down to kiss her. “I am. And I think Donny should come, too.”

  “What, why?”

  “Because Michelle’s got a bunch of water stockpiled. While water is working now, that might not be for long and we should be boiling it anyway just in case. She says she has had a ton of water that was delivered by an admirer, right?” He winked at her. “That’s the only thing we’re low on, but we have some purifiers, too. Still, can’t hurt to have the bottles here for backup. Carry, you should be filling up some jugs too after purifying. We have the snow, but when that freezes over, it’s hard to get it inside and melted, then boiled. I don’t want to use firewood to boil water every time we need some if we don’t have to. I’d prefer to get a few things while I’m out in this. We have a generator but that one’s old. Maybe I can find another one. You have a lot of canned goods you said?”

  Michelle nodded. “Yes. I have a pantry full ready to donate to the local church. I’ve been meaning to make it down there for…um…about a year now. I now have enough to feed an army.”

  “Donny,” Bob said. “I think we should stop over at Dawson’s and see what he’s up to.”

  Donny nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Who’s that?” Michelle asked.

  Bob grinned. “He’s sort of been preparing for this his whole life. He lives down the street. I want to talk to him. I don’t want to worry anyone but in the case of looting or issues, I’d like to be prepared. I think if Dawson might want to move to this house, I’d like to offer him to join up with us, if that’s okay, Carry? Sharing firewood might be a great idea. Amongst other things…”

  Michelle watched Bob closely. Did he expect trouble?

  Carry finally agreed. “Bob, I need to check on Mrs. Anderson.”

  “Is that old lady still kicking?” he asked with a smile.

  “She is. But she’s alone.”

  “Okay. Bring her here, Carry,” he said gently.

  Carry seemed the type to collect strays along the way. She and Bob were the perfect match. “That’s why I love you,” she whispered, and they cuddled on the way to the door.

  “Michelle, you might want to get some more of the snow gear on, and I suppose we could fix up a sled to drag along in case we need to.”

  “I’ll get on that, pop,” Donny said.

  Bob’s grandkids watched as the adults made plans to venture out into the quiet, frozen day. They got the truck outfitted for the deep snow since plows were no longer running. Michelle dressed extra warm before joining them outside.

  She wondered if she’d be too late to save her cat, and it broke her heart, but she was glad to be of some help with her overstocked pantry and water. She’d try to think of anything else that could be beneficial before they arrived at her place.

  The first stop they made was at a house just a few down the street and a big burly man was introduced to her as Dawson. From inside the truck, Michelle could hear the two men speaking seriously. They shook hands at the end of it, and Bob got inside the truck.

  “He and his two sons and their wives will be joining us.”

  “The house’ll be pretty full, Pop,” Donny reminded his father.

  “More the merrier,” Bob said grimly, putting the car into drive. “I have a feeling we’ll need the extra hands…and eyes.”

  Michelle met Bob’s gaze in the mirror. Was he talking about Cybercorp? Did he feel like they would be back once again?

  She’d woken up thinking the cold was her only problem. It wasn’t even noon yet and she was worried about something even worse.

  Chapter Three

  Catlin, Illinois

  “Brittany!” Colton shouted, shaking her awake. “Are you okay?”

  She blinked up at him. “Yes. I’m up. What’s wrong…Benton? Lily?”

  “They’re fine. Asleep.” Colton leaned back, relief dizzying. When he’d gone to wake her, Brittany had looked pale and like she wasn’t breathing. He’d seen so many dead people already, he might have just been projecting.

  His heart settled to a normal speed as she sat up and stretched before rubbing her back. “Sore?” he asked, and she nodded, her haunted gaze meeting his.

  Brittany stepped out of the van and yawned, rubbing her eyes as she tried to wake up. Colton could tell she was trying to take it all in. The earthquake—the “big one”—had done more than cut a miles-wide gash through the earth that seemed to go on forever. Devastation was a misnomer. Even calling it the apocalypse seemed like an under-exaggeration.

  Everywhere they looked was utter destruction: homes, power lines, vehicles, trees—even the flat, smooth, grassy earth had been turned into a mess of mud, dirt, and debris. Possessions that had once been inside people’s homes the day before were lying strewn out in the streets, each of them a fragment of a personal life that had been torn apart, never to be made completely whole again.

  The sheer magnitude of the destruction was beyond Colton’s ability to comprehend, and he watched her breathe faster as she, too, struggled to deal with it. He placed his hand on her shoulder which seemed to bring her back, helping her focus on what she could focus on: the here and now.

  Since the second earthquake, everything had been a blur. They’d made it from the fields into the first town they saw, and though they weren’t anywhere close to the hole anymore, the effects were still disastrous. Colton coughed, his lungs painfully trying to push out the gunk he’d inhaled. It’s going to take forever for this stuff to settle, he thought. The world was fog, smoke, dust, and ice. That was the new land they were trying to navigate. After the quake, Bart said that the hole would easily be miles wide versus just one street. And they’d gotten far enough away from it to keep from being dumped into it, but the quake still had destroyed everything it touched.

  They were dealing with the fallout even though they were miles from the hole. Buildings were down. The roads were cracked with sinkholes at every turn. People were hurt, dead, and dying. Colton and Bart took shifts helping as many as they could until they collapsed from exhaustion or the cold.

  Brittany, too, had taken a turn, but Colton had made her go back to get rest since she’d never slept the night before in the tent, and he could tell she was dead on her feet.

  It was Brittany who’d made them stop at the nearest street of homes, because, as she put it, did it matter who they helped? Bart and Colton had agreed. It didn’t matter. And Bart said the earthquake was the length of the entire country and they wouldn’t be able to help even a fraction of the people that needed it, so any place was as good as another.

  “I’m sorry,” she said blinking up at him. “I fell asleep.” She had huddled inside the back of a van with the kids. The owner had died when his house had collapsed on him, and his wife had been their first save. Colton and Brittany had dug her out and, even after losing her spouse, the brave woman was helping them dig through the neighbor’s houses.

  Brittany held the flashlight until midnight when Colton had sent her off to rest with the children.

  “I’m just making sure you’re okay.” Colton checked her again, the
pale coloring still a sheen lighter than what she normally looked. When he’d opened the van, he found that Brittany had laid her jacket over the children, and so she was so cold that she’d turned a shade of blue. “You scared me,” he said.

  “I’m so sorry. Let me come help.”

  “No, you stay here.”

  “I’m fine,” she said with exasperation. Her green eyes flashed with frustration. “I can help, Colton. I need to.”

  He understood what she meant. With the planet spinning off its axis, the only thing that worked to keep them from losing it completely was to focus on helping their fellow man. Could a decent person ignore the cries of pain and anguish?

  “Okay.” He smiled.

  Brittany looked him over, her face filled with dread. He was covered in blood and soot.

  They waited as Bart came over. “I’ll sit with them if you don’t mind.” His brother braced his hands on his knees. “I’m dog tired. Colton, there’s a guy stuck in his basement down at the end of the cul-de-sac. He’s not responding much anymore. It’s not looking too good, man.”

  Brittany and Colton headed in that direction. Once they got close they could hear someone moving around under the house.

  “Help!” they heard as they drew closer. “Help me!”

  The guy coughed. The basement had a window down on the ground, and Brittany and Colton laid side by side on their stomachs to see inside. “He’s right there,” Colton said, pulling off his jacket.

  “You’re going inside?” she said.

  “Yeah. Hold this.”

  “Colton, the house looks ready to go at any minute.”

  But he was already crawling through the tiny window, squeezing his shoulders in and sliding face first into the house. Inside was a pile of rubble and shelves that had caved one way or another. The debris pinned the man to the floor with some shelving on his chest. He was wheezing a wet sound, and Colton was able to get near him after slowly stepping over and through—crawling under—some of the metal and bricks that were arranged like a sadistic maze. Colton caught his arm on some rusted metal and it ripped into his skin before he could pull away. “Ah,” he growled.

  “Colton! You okay?” Brittany called.

  The house creaked above him in answer and Colton froze.

  Carefully he leaned down. “Listen, we’ve got to get you out of here quick.” He turned to the window. “I’m fine,” he called. To the man he said, “If I lift this, you think you could slide to the side?”

  The man nodded, his face dotted with sweat, his chest compressed under pounds and pounds of pressure. Colton tried to find a place to grab onto the shelves without shifting the weight further onto the man. “One. Two. Three.”

  Colton groaned as he fought to lift the metal, and he got it to move what seemed only a centimeter before he had to let go for lack of strength. But the man was quick enough that he’d squeezed out just in time. He laid on his side before sitting up, holding his chest. The shelf he’d been under bent and crumbled beneath the pressure, and that shifted another stack, and another…

  A shudder ran along the ceiling. The house was coming down right on top of them.

  Colton stuffed his hands under the man’s armpits and lifted him to his feet, shoving him towards the window. “Go!”

  Brittany had her hands through the opening, waving them like mad, and they found the man and latched on, pulling him through. A shelf near Colton fell towards him and he felt the impact to his back versus where it would have struck—his head—had he not turned in time. It slammed into him and he was thrown to the ground.

  “Colton!” Brittany shouted, and the last thing he remembered was her worried eyes as what felt like a hammer came down on top of him.

  **

  Something cool touched Colton’s cheek. He opened his eyes and there was Brittany, covered in dust, hovering above him. “Wake up. Please, wake up.”

  “I’m awake,” he murmured, face pressed against his arm, something heavy on his back.

  The shelving unit, he remembered, had fallen and knocked him silly. Colton was still dizzy as he struggled to dislodge it.

  “I can’t get it to move,” she said, searching around.

  Then panic struck him. The house had been ready to go before, and now she was in there with him. Colton turned his head as best he could, only able to see her feet as she carefully searched for a way to get him out.

  “Brittany, get out of here. Are you crazy? Get Bart!”

  She ignored him, still talking to herself, muttering nonsense, and then he thought he heard an “aha” before he felt the shelf vibrate. He fought to turn his head another inch and saw her with an old bicycle tire that had ripped, wrapped around a support pole and she was putting the other end around the shelving unit to try and leverage it off of him.

  “Don’t do that! What if that pole is ready to give out?”

  But Brittany wasn’t listening; she was instead checking the tied sections. Then, leaning back with a foot propped on some debris, she pulled. He closed his eyes tightly as she heaved on the rubber piece. He felt the shelving unit move an inch and heard her vocally grunting with the strain as it moved again.

  “Come on!” she shouted and with one final pull, the shelf slid from his back. With relief, he breathed deeply.

  Colton unsteadily climbed to his feet, and Brittany rushed to help, placing herself under his armpit. With Brittany as his crutch, he made it to the window, and she pushed him first up and out. Colton turned around and grabbed her hands, pulling her, but his back was tweaked, and it hurt to put any weight on it. She inched up and got her waist at the halfway point when the house shook, finally giving up on its final support. It sagged high above in warning, and Colton dragged Brittany clear just as the house collapsed, raining debris down on their heads.

  “Brittany!” he shouted, scrambling over to where she’d been. “Brittany!” He had to dig through roof shingles and insulation to find her.

  A muffled answer, “I’m here. I’m okay.” She sneezed and poked her head out, stuff stuck in her hair. “Ow,” she said, touching a nasty bump on her head.

  “Let me look at that.”

  Brittany’s bright green eyes narrowed on him as he searched her scalp. “It’s fine, Colton.” She touched his hand to stop him. “I’m fine.”

  They heard a groan and Colton remembered the man he’d pulled from the house was still there somewhere under the rubble. Together they dug him out, then moved him to an area in the grass without glass or bricks.

  “You okay?” Colton asked, and the guy nodded, rubbing his chest, blood coating his lips. “You sure?” Colton put his head near the man’s chest.

  “Hey,” he said to Brittany. “We need to watch this guy.”

  Colton was looking around, trying to find something to use just in case. Not a second had gone by before Brittany started yelling for him to come back.

  “He’s not breathing!”

  The man’s eyes were closed. Colton listened to his chest again before trying to do CPR. The man’s lips were coated with blood once again. “He’s got blood in his lungs.”

  Colton rushed across the yard back to the basement, where he could see some of the shelves’ items scattered around the debris. He found what he was looking for and returned.

  “Hold him down,” he said, kneeling beside Brittany. She nodded. “With all your weight,” he said. “Just in case.”

  Brittany looked at him strangely as Colton pulled the pen apart. “Have you ever done this before?”

  “No. And it’s not sterile but he’s dying. I’ve only ever seen it done. But we were trained on it pretty extensively.” He ripped the man’s shirt away, and then he lined up the pen between two ribs. Lifting his arm a few times, coming down on the skin softly, he jerked up and down once with more force, stabbing the man in the chest.

  Colton pulled the pen back out and yanked out the tiny vile of ink inside so now there was an empty tube of plastic. He stuffed that into the hole he’d cr
eated.

  “The gross part.” He put his mouth to the tube and sucked. Blood filled his mouth and he spat that out and backed off, letting it pour out of the tubing on its own.

  Brittany grimaced at him, no doubt thinking of the danger in the rough-necked operation. Distracting her from these thoughts, was the man’s wheezing, then coughing, and finally he cleared his lungs enough to breathe deeply again.

  “Hold this,” he told Brittany, who dutifully obeyed.

  “Was that how they showed you to do it?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  “No. I had to improvise. This guy will need antibiotics.” He sighed.

  Brittany shook her head. “Where are the fire departments and police? The EMTs?”

  “They could be trapped inside their own houses for all we know. The trucks can’t get through here. Look.”

  Along with fallen telephone poles and wires, and ripped up asphalt, was debris sometimes tens of feet high piled up in the street.

  They shared a look of sadness after watching people frantically trying to get their loved ones out, or worse, those who’d been dug free, but died from injuries. The block was chaos, and it was just one road. Thousands upon thousands—hundreds of thousands, even—of roads just like this one went on and on. “Can you believe this is happening? he asked.

  “No. Can you?”

  “Not even a little.”

  The wife of the dead man with the van that the kids and Bart were sleeping in came over. “I’m a nurse,” she said, taking hold of the tube and checking the man’s vitals. “Hello there, Mr. Sanderson. How are you feeling?” she asked in a practiced voice. “I’ve got him. Go check on the others.”

  Colton gave her a smile of thanks. He could always tell the people trained for emergencies, because they just took charge.

  Colton and Brittany went to the next house. And the next. And the next, until she was swaying on her feet. He felt the same as she did, but he’d been trained to ignore it. Brittany was still learning how to cope with sleep and food deprivation. And she was doing a damned fine job.

  Noticing her beginning to stare off into space he touched her shoulder. “Go get Bart.”