Survivors of the Sun Read online

  She held it up, surprised? ‘You want this?’

  ‘No,’ he grinned, a sheepish look on his face, ‘it’s for Ant, it’s a dog carry bag, see, it has a clip inside so you can attach it to a collar.’ So it was. Georgia gave Jamie a quick hug, ‘Thank you. That will make it so much easier.’

  Deedee had found more hair clips, a set of bangles and a small grey teddy bear.

  Once everything was packed and sorted, she set the children to feeding and watering all the dogs and went back outside to look for Bertha.

  ‘Perfect timing,’ Bertha said, ‘coffee’s ready and waiting,’ and before Georgia could say anything she added, ‘so did you find everything you need?’

  ‘I most certainly did, thank you so much.’

  Bertha picked up the large coffee pot, carrying it over to the table. ‘No need to thank me,’ she said over her shoulder, ‘but you could bring that tray of cups over here.’

  Georgia glanced around her, saw the tray in question and picked it up. As she set it down, Bertha suddenly asked, ‘you going to manage with those dogs?’

  ‘I hope so, I won’t keep them on a lead, if they keep up, they keep up, apart from Ant that is, she won’t do much walking. Jamie found her a bag and…,’

  ‘Oh yeah, that pink one, it is a designer label you know. I’m thinking it was real expensive and who knows maybe it belonged to one of Paris Hilton’s Chihuahuas.’

  They looked at each other then, and both laughed.

  ‘Well Ant has always been a bit of a princess.’

  The aroma of coffee wafted through the air. ‘Will the kids have some?’

  Georgia was about to say no, but then thought again. ‘Yes, they may as well, normally I don’t let them drink coffee, but, oh well, life is on a complete different level now.’

  ‘It sure is. You know you need to be careful with the dogs, if this keeps up there is going to be a lot of hungry people around.’

  Georgia shot her a look of horror. It had never occurred to her, but Bertha was right. Hungry people would eat anything.

  ‘Just saying,’ Bertha shrugged her shoulders. ‘Guessing you’ll be fine though, once you get to your mother’s place.’

  Georgia was going to correct her, but instead said, ‘yes, it is a large property, very secure.’

  Bertha nodded. ‘That’s good. Good to know you will all be safe.’

  Georgia left her to go and get the children. Millie and Badger were running riot inside the shop, tearing round and round the clothing racks, after each other and Ant was on the bed barking furiously at them. She hated it when they went crazy.

  ‘Have they all eaten?’ She asked Rebecca.

  ‘Yes, gave Badger a full bowl but I think she wants more. Should I give her some extra?’

  Georgia shook her head. They had to be sparing with the dog biscuits. She knew that Grandma Johnson would have no problem taking in her grandchildren and more than likely, she would take Deedee in as well, but she knew for certain, that she would not be happy about the dogs. She hated dogs, was a cat person, and had two very spoiled Siamese cats. She didn’t share this with Rebecca though, they were going through enough upheaval as it was.

  She did a last check on the bags, everything was packed and as she tightened a loose strap she said, ‘Bertha has made coffee.’

  ‘For us too?’ Jamie asked.

  ‘If you would like one.’

  ‘Yeah I would.’

  ‘Mummy doesn’t let me drink coffee.’

  ‘Well,’ Georgia slipped an arm over Deedee’s shoulder, ‘you don’t have to have one, but I don’t think that she would mind, if you had one this time.’

  Suddenly she became aware of a low sound. She had heard that sound before. It was the sound of a crowd and it was getting closer. She stared through the windows. In the distance, beyond the parking lot, she saw a body of people coming up the road. From where she stood watching, they did not appear to be violent or aggressive, nevertheless Georgia was afraid. They were certain to come here, to get food, supplies, and there were so many of them.

  She ran for the back door. ‘Bertha, Lester,’ she called, terror clear in her voice, the girls huddled behind her, ‘there is a huge crowd coming, I think you should all get out now.’

  ‘You worry too much,’ Lester said, ‘we can feed them.’

  ‘Well, go and see for yourself,’ Georgia said, ‘I saw what a crowd could do yesterday.’ Lester and Bertha followed her inside, looking down the road through the plate glass windows.

  ‘Holy crap.’ Bertha said. ‘Looks like we are gonna be feeding a lot of people.’

  ‘I don’t think we have enough for all of them.’ Lester said quietly to Georgia, but she barely heard him.

  ‘Just grab your stuff and go,’ Georgia exclaimed, ‘there are too many of them, and when there isn’t enough food then it is going to turn bad, really bad.’ As they watched, a small group, a little ahead of the main body, reached the edge of the parking lot and looked around, then they saw the Goodwill store, and turned, calling and waving something to the crowd behind them. As she looked them over, she saw two things that scared her, the first was that they were nearly all armed and the second was that very few of them were carrying anything else, no supplies; they were looking for food.

  There seemed to be a forward swell of movement and the group came up onto the parking lot and moved towards the building. Georgia turned and ran towards the bed, which had been their temporary home. Hastily she pulled on her pack. The girls already had theirs on and they looked scared.

  Georgia slung the shotgun over one shoulder, and the pink bag, with Ant over the other. ‘Where the hell is Jamie?’ She asked Rebecca.

  ‘He’s still out the back, with Millie and Badger.’

  ‘Well grab his pack,’ Georgia gasped, her breath a little ragged as she snatched at the shopping caddy. She quickly glanced over the bed to check that nothing had been forgotten, and pushed the girls towards the back door. She paused and turned towards Bertha and the others. They were all staring out the window.

  ‘Don’t just stand there,’ she yelled, ‘run, get out.’

  They turned and looked at her, and in that look, Georgia saw that none of them had any idea what a crowd could do, had no idea that there might be any danger. She saw in their eyes that they simply imagined this crowd would wait for them to serve them up a meal and then politely move on.

  If there was time, she might have been able to persuade them, to make them understand the danger, but there was no time, and she knew too well, how bad it could get. Her responsibility was to the children.

  ‘You go on,’ Bertha said, ‘we will be fine.’ Over their shoulders, she could see the main crowd spilling onto the parking lot, joining the smaller group and then all of them, flooding ever closer. She nodded and shoved the back door open.

  ‘Out, out, out,’ she yelled to the girls.

  Jamie stood just outside the door with Badger and Millie. He looked up, startled.

  ‘Jamie, take the caddy,’ the urgency of her words causing him to leap forward and grasp the handle. She looked quickly around. They would go down to the empty lot, into the scrub, and make their way round the houses in a half circle, coming back to the road about half a mile further up.

  ‘Come, let’s go,’ she said.

  They ran down the back, into the tangled mass of morning glory, her heart racing. The children running before her, the dogs scattered around them. They were running for their lives again. Her mind was imprinted with the image of the children bounding over the vivid purple of the morning glory flowers and the dark green of the leaves. Knapsacks flapping up and down on the girl’s backs, the caddy, catching a wheel on a fallen branch, twisting, pulling Jamie back, then she was next to him, grabbing at it with him, pulling it free,

  ‘Run, run,’ she panted. ‘Don’t stop yet.’

  They clambered over the short picket fence of the first house and ran low over the lawn, along the side of the house, and out the
front gate. The children were all panting heavily now. They had come upon a small road and on the other side, there was a scruffy bank of grass and then a scattering of trees.

  ‘I have a stitch,’ Deedee wheezed.

  ‘We can’t stop yet, just stick your finger in it, Deedee, where it hurts, and run for the trees, we can rest a moment in there.’ Her words were stilted, as she struggled for breath. Her lungs were on fire. She could not go much further; the weight of the pack was cutting into her shoulders, causing pure agony as she ran. Her legs were threatening to buckle beneath her.

  They heard terrible screams and then a ragged burst of gunfire, followed by tortured agonized shrieking. Then they were stumbling in amongst the trees. They collapsed to the ground, the children gasping for breath, their faces white with shock, trembling violently. Grief, and fury, and frustration tore through Georgia. She wanted to howl and scream, but she knew she could do none of those things. She had to hold it all in.

  ‘Stay down low,’ she gasped, ‘catch your breath.’ Moving onto her stomach, Georgia half crawled, half dragged herself back towards the edge of the trees, the undergrowth and thorns scratching at her bare arms. She lay motionless, still breathing heavily, looking intently up along the slope. There was no movement. It was as she thought. The mob would stay at the store for a while, fight over the little food they found, and then carry on, leaving an empty shell behind them.

  Georgia made her way back to the children. ‘Okay, we haven’t been followed, we can rest a little while. ’ As she spoke, she slipped the pink bag from her shoulder. Ant cowered in the bottom of it, not wanting to come out. Georgia tried to undo the clips of her pack, but found her hands were shaking so badly that she was almost not able to free herself, but after several attempts, it slipped from her shoulders.

  Deedee began crying, and Georgia went over to her, putting her arms around her. ‘Hush honey,’ she said, ‘everything is going to be alright, I promise.’ She half crawled onto Georgia’s lap, and over the top of Deedee’s head, Georgia saw the drawn fearful faces of Rebecca and Jamie.

  She held out her arms to them. ‘Come here, sit with us,’ and as Rebecca crawled over to her, Georgia looked over at Jamie who had not moved. ‘You too, my buddy.’ ‘They’re dead aren’t they?’ Rebecca asked, in a low voice, tears welling up at the corners of her eyes, and spilling over.

  Georgia held the children close, rocking them back and forth, whispering soothing words, while Badger and Millie sat silently watching them.

  It was cool in the shade of the trees and a merciful breeze dried the sweat from their bodies. The air was thick with smoke and beneath its pungent acrid odor was another smell, barely perceptible, a sweet, yet unpleasant smell. It was the smell of death, Georgia suddenly realized. She held the children a little closer. Was this how it was going to be? Always?

  Chapter Fifteen

  It took them nearly an hour to wind their way round through scrub and the occasional back yard until they made their way back up to a main road. In all that time, they did not see a single living soul.

  Georgia settled the children behind a thick privet hedge, which gave the tiny yard they were in, privacy from the road. The house, only yards away had an unlived feel about it. She had carefully studied the windows, looking for any signs of movement as the children drank a little water. Rebecca had silently filled a small plastic bowl with water for the dogs and then afterwards she had put the bowl back in her bag, all without uttering a single word. She had not even responded, when Millie had crawled onto her lap and given her ‘kisses’. Something that normally, would have had her in fits of giggles.

  In fact, none of the children had said a word since they left the woods behind the Goodwill store. They were flushed, sweating profusely from the unbearable warmness of the day, and they looked dazed. As though each of them, had run headlong into a brick wall, and stunned by the impact, were about to collapse. Except that it wasn’t a physical blow that had struck them.

  She considered entering the house, checking to see that it really was empty and then letting the children rest there a while. Then she thought about the mob. The reality was that there was no time to take a rest. They needed to keep going. She needed to find out where they were, and she needed to see if the way was clear.

  Georgia pulled off her pack, and then wiped the sweat from her face with the front of her t-shirt. The breeze had died down and the air seemed thick around them. Even the birds were silent as they sheltered in the shade.

  ‘Wait here,’ she said, ‘and not a sound, I will go and check if the way is clear.’ She held the shotgun in her hands, the pink bag with Ant, back over her shoulder. She no longer felt comfortable with the gun, in fact, if she was honest with herself, she had developed a considerable respect, and fear for it, apprehensive that it would go off again.

  The noise it had made, the smell of cordite, and the reality of the damage such a gun could do, was sobering at the very least. Previously, the word ‘gunshot’ had evoked a tidy picture in her mind of a neat round hole. Her image did not even involve blood. Even the dead man on the freeway, half his head and face blown away, had not really given her to understand, that this is what the ammunition you casually loaded into your weapon could do.

  It was actually seeing the violent impact of the massed shot, seeing the flesh ripping and splattering away, seeing someone die at your hands, the stench of their blood and shit filling your nostrils. That was the ultimate truth.

  She wasn’t stupid, she knew that her life, the children’s lives, had been at stake, but that didn’t make it any easier to stomach. And so, as nervous as she was about carrying the weapon, she would continue to do so. In fact, in this new updated version of Kansas City, it was probably vital that she did.

  She stepped out onto the sidewalk, carefully looking both ways. It was not traffic that she was looking to avoid, but people. And there were people, two of them; but they were both dead, lying in the middle of the road. The stench and the black cloud of flies that rose from them, and the broken look of their bodies told her they had been there a couple of days.

  There was that eerie silence in the air again. Broken only by a solitary crow perched up on a nearby roof, its head cocked as it stared down at her with its silver eyes. Eyes, that seemed to condemn her. Surprising herself, she said aloud to the bird, ‘I didn’t do this. It wasn’t me.’ Her words were stark in the silence. The crow lifted himself from the roof and soared away, cawing as it went.

  As Georgia began cautiously making her way down the road she was suddenly struck by the thought that in actual fact, she still had no idea what caused ‘this’, the ‘it’ that had happened. An EMP had been an explanation, but that is all it was, an explanation, not a validated answer.

  If indeed, it were an EMP, surely some vehicles would be working by now, old diesel motors, surely someone would have managed to get something back into operational mode. Yet the roads and the skies remained silent. If it was not an EMP, then what was it? But, Georgia did not have an answer. What she did know was that this lack of information, lack of communication was doing her head in. It was all very well standing in the middle of a road, telling a bird that she was innocent, but unless she knew what had really happened, she had no way of knowing if she really was.

  What if, this catastrophe, was linked to peoples appetite for an undemanding existence? To the extent that their ever increasing need and greed was altering the climate, tearing great holes in the ozone layer and substituting all that nature has to offer for a polluted, chaotic, crime ridden landscape.

  Isn’t that what those greenies have been saying for years? Had the consequences of those actions finally caught up with civilization? In which case, she was equally to blame. She should have been part of the effort to try to stem the insanity.

  She felt a pang of remorse. Remembering demonstrations she had not gone to, protests she had not joined, letters she had not written, and tweets, she had not sent. The issues of the world were alwa
ys someone else’s problem. Not once had she lifted her voice in protest of what deep down she knew was wrong.

  She abruptly broke off her thoughts, finally, a signpost. Carefully picking her way amongst the broken down debris and trash that lay scattered everywhere, she made her way over it and then stared at the sign in disgust. She had hoped they were on Warnall Road, but they were not. They were on East 135th Street and she had no idea where that was. It seemed to be a main road of sorts. Somehow she had led them completely off track.

  Back with the children, she let Ant out of the bag for a while. Then she took out the road map and flipped through the road names until she found east 135th Street, then using the page number and page co-ordinates she hastily turned the pages over until she found the right one, and traced her finger down looking for the road.

  ‘What road are we looking for?’ Rebecca asked, breaking the silence.

  ‘Hmm..., Um…, East 135th Street.’ She held the map down so they could all look.

  ‘There it is,’ Jamie exclaimed. She squinted at the small print, wishing she had remembered to bring her reading glasses. He had found it, and as she looked at the roads running off it, she was very relieved to see that somehow, they had arrived at their first turnoff; from here, they would walk about half a mile and then turn right into Holmes Road. They had left the Goodwill store far behind and now they had just under eight miles left.

  ‘Bet Grandma Johnson will be real happy to see us,’ Jamie said as he stood up.

  ‘I bet she will,’ Georgia said, the quick smile she had given Jamie fading away as she turned to tuck the map back into Rebecca’s knapsack. Have to think positive, who knows, maybe they would let her stay as well.

  She pulled out the small Tupperware container from her own pack, and half filled it with water, allowing each of the dogs another couple of licks, before putting it away. Ant had clambered back into her pink bag by herself. Home for her, had become the pink bag.