1505809274 (S) by J. Adam

Author:J. Adam
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Rising Dawn Press
Published: 2014-12-27T05:00:00+00:00

When Paul returned about half an hour later, he had grim news. The trail did indeed lead to the bluffs overlooking the town, and from what Paul could see from that vantage point, it was a burnt out ghost town. He saw no one alive amid the smashed buildings and smoldering rubble.

“Mom,” Serena interrupted, as she laid a hand on her mother’s arm, “but we have almost no more food.”

Marilyn smiled at her daughter’s earnest words with the kind of expression meant to comfort a child when the truth is there is no hope. It was Paul who then suggested that he and one other person could still go down to the town and try to scavenge for anything they could find.

Paul’s wife Linda was dead set against it, saying, “No way, Paul. It’s too dangerous. We don’t know what happened down there, or if it’s a trap or an ambush or something. Remember what happened in Broomfield?”

However, even though the memory of watching the ambush and massacre of another refugee group a week before was a powerful warning, Paul insisted, and taking Tim, the older Anglo man along, the pair disappeared down the trail. Tim’s parting words to his wife Chloe were cryptic to the others, but she understood perfectly. “Some one’s gotta’ survive, babe.”

Hours passed and the two men failed to return. The group waited tensely and took turns keeping watch. Nothing. By nightfall, both Chloe and Paul’s wife Linda were livid and increasingly inconsolable. They both kept insisting to go and look for their husbands, to send a rescue party to do something.

As the darkness of the night deepened revealing a sky full of sparkling stars, Marilyn realized that this could be a serious crisis. She looked at the other women in her group, and at her daughter too. There were no men left amongst them to make the hard decisions, to protect them, to provide the glue of authority. Paul’s oldest child was only a boy of twelve.

Marilyn could tell that all the others were beginning to crack under this, the final straw of their sense of hopelessness. In a world full of danger, having capable men on hand always was a plus. Marilyn thought of her daughter back at the warehouse. She saved her from a fate worse than death. She tried her best to rekindle those feelings within her, of having to take action, of having to fight to survive.

In the moonlit glow of the faces of the scared women and children around her, Marilyn realized that it would be up to the women to take action. Survival would depend on them, and harnessing the will and instinct of those who refused to quit would decide if they lived or died. Marilyn sat up straighter in the small, tight circle where she and her traveling companions were gathered. She took a deep breath, and then she made a proposal.

“Three or four of us should go and see what happened. We’ll be quiet and careful and use the cover of darkness to keep us hidden.

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