The Last Disaster Page 2

  “No, I’m not.”

  Ryder looked me up and down. It made me feel a bit uneasy, and it seemed as if he’d noticed.

  “I’m just trying to figure you out,” he said.

  “There isn’t anything to figure out.”

  He shook his head, wearing a half-smile that made him look kind of cute, even with blood smeared all over his face. Not that I should have noticed. “I disagree.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I said as a strand of hair blew in front of my face. The wind was suddenly so brisk it felt as though it had sliced my cheek where the hair had touched it.

  Ryder cocked his head to the side. “What question?”

  “Why was he hurting you?”

  “Where have you been?” He squinted at me. “They hate us. They want to kill us. I was lucky he was alone, or I’d probably be dead.”

  I shook my head. “Us?”

  “Well, maybe not you, but definitely me and others like me.” He seemed to be carefully studying everything about me. “You know about the war, right? You’re not all marked up, so I figured you must be on our side.”

  I swallowed hard. A war? My parents hadn’t ever mentioned anything about a war. Just bad people.

  “What kind of war?”

  “You really don’t know, do you? Where have you been hiding for the last, oh I don’t know, all your life? OK, maybe not quite that long.” Ryder laughed at himself as if he’d said something funny, but the grin quickly fell from his face when he saw I wasn’t joining in. He looked around. “Are you alone?”

  I shrugged. His question made me feel uncomfortable. I didn’t want him to know. If I had thought quicker, I would have instantly told him I wasn’t.

  Ryder looked at the footprints on the ground. “They call themselves The Evolved. Before the war, we were all together living in various bases working together to rebuild, but then, some of us had a change of heart.”

  “A change… in what way?” I asked quickly.

  He shrugged one shoulder. “They changed their beliefs… they wanted something different.”

  “What kind of beliefs?” I asked.

  “For the world. How to rebuild. Some of them thought they were better than others.” Ryder glared at me and pressed his lips together to form a straight line. It almost looked as though he was worried he might be saying too much.

  He watched me carefully as I slowly backed away from him. “Well, OK,” I said looking around for the best way to disengage from the predicament I’d managed to get myself into. “I should probably get going.”

  “Where are you going?” he asked, but he looked as though he already knew I wasn’t about to tell him.

  “Just… on my way,” I said. He pressed on the side of his face and wobbled slightly. “Are you going to be OK on your own?”

  “Aww, you care.” He grinned but slowly shook his head. “Yeah, I’m just a little dizzy, but I’ll be fine. This wasn’t the first time I’d taken a hit like that. Probably won’t be the last either.”

  I grimaced. It was just more proof that my dad had been right about the world outside our home. “Try to cut back on them if you can. It looked rough.”

  “Will try.” He stood there watching me. “All right, well, good luck to you then.”

  “And to you,” I said waiting, hoping he’d take the first step. I didn’t want him to see which way I was about to walk for fear he’d follow me.

  “You know,” he said taking a small step forward. I aimed the gun at him again, and he held up his hands. “If you want… you could come with me. I have friends. A place you could go. It would be safer for you if you—”

  “You said you were in a war. That doesn’t sound safe to me,” I blurted.

  He blinked his gorgeous blue eyes at me. “No, I suppose it doesn’t, but it is… at least for now.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate the offer, but I’m going to have to decline,” I said.

  He nodded and flashed me a weak smile. “I understand.” He placed his hand on his chest pocket again, and his frustration resurfaced. “God dammit!”

  “What did he take from you?” I asked even though I should have let the conversation end.

  “My lighter.”

  I nodded.

  My family had been lucky to have everything we’d acquired. Our supplies had been running low, and each item we had was precious. Even though I could start a fire with twigs and branches, I too would have been pissed if someone took something that belonged to me. Ryder had probably felt the same way about his lighter.

  Items weren’t easy to find anymore. I could still remember one time when my dad was still alive, and he’d come back from what he’d called a run. He and my mom were standing in the kitchen talking in hushed voices about how the nearest town was nearly emptied. My dad had said he might need to start venturing out further. I could still remember my mom telling him that he could, but only over her dead body.

  We’d had so much back then. It was kind of an obsession of my dad’s to collect as much as possible, but at least it was something that had allowed us to live rather comfortably for my whole life up until recently.

  That was before everything went to crap, and now here I was face to bloody face with a man who’d been beaten for his lighter. A lighter. Things were definitely different, and not for the better.

  “You sure I can’t help you get to where you’re going?” Ryder asked glancing once again at the footprints his enemy had left in the snow. “Those guys… they’d take you, and I really don’t even want to think about what they’d do to you.”

  “Kill me, I’d guess.”

  Ryder chuckled, but it didn’t sound like he actually found anything funny. “No, but you’d probably wish they would.”

  “Then I should probably get on my way,” I said tucking my gun back into my pants.

  “You’re lucky you still have one of those,” Ryder said flicking his fingers toward my hidden gun.

  I shook my head.

  “Yeah, don’t see many of those around anymore.”

  “Oh.”

  “One of those is far more valuable than a lighter.” His eyes were glued to my hip. He waved his hand at me and turned slightly. “I should get back too. Any longer and they might send out a search party.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Nah. Good luck to you. Stay away from the tattooed men and women.”

  I bobbed my head once. “I will. Thanks for the advice.”

  Ryder flashed me a quick smile and wave before he walked away. He glanced back at the footprints but then kept walking in the opposite direction.

  I watched him for a few minutes and then adjusted my backpack. It was time to get back on track.

  No more wasting time checking on others. It would be best to keep going south and avoid everyone, just like my dad would have wanted.

  3

  Every so often I looked over my shoulder expecting to see Ryder chasing after me, but he wasn’t there. Maybe there was a part of me that almost hoped he would come back. Although I’d been suspicious, maybe I hadn’t needed to be.

  He seemed nice enough, and if he would have wanted to do something to me, or take something from me, he probably would have at least tried. But even in his condition, it didn’t seem as though he had any interest in stealing from me. He hadn’t seemed even the least bit afraid of my gun.

  Maybe he could tell I hadn’t ever used it on a person. Had my hand been shaking? My whole body had probably been shaking.

  Ugh.

  I’d been lost in my thoughts, unsure of how far I’d traveled when I saw the snow-covered city stretched out before me. The only reason I knew it had been a city was because there were a few buildings that were still standing. Those that had been made of brick had apparently been able to withstand the violent storms a few years ago.

  Everything else that would have been in a city was gone. Buildings and homes erased away as though they’d never existed.

&
nbsp; Anything that had remained after the storms my parents lived through must have been wiped away during the last big storm. If I wouldn’t have seen pictures, I wouldn’t even be able to imagine what the world had once looked like.

  I wondered if my dad had come through this city years ago. Maybe he’d walked on the same space I was walking on.

  Even though I would have liked to feel a connection to him, I didn’t. The whole area had an eerie feeling. It was like the only thing that was still hanging around the decimated city were ghosts and spirits from a long time ago.

  If my dad had come to this town, there wouldn’t be anything for me to salvage. He wouldn’t have left any stone unturned.

  If it hadn’t been for that horrible feeling in the air that someone was watching me, I would have considered going through some of the buildings that were still standing. But I just wanted to get the hell away from the ghost town so I could shake the creepy feeling.

  I moved my feet quicker as I moved closer to the edge of the town. The muscles in my calves tightened with each step as if they were pulling me down toward the ground, begging me to give them a rest.

  “Soon,” I whispered.

  With each step, I could feel my anger rising. My frustration felt as though it was trying to rip itself out of my chest. It hit me so suddenly it almost threw me off balance. I wanted to scream out my pain, but I was too scared. It wasn’t fair. I shouldn’t have to be doing this all alone.

  My mom and dad had had each other. I had no one.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have ever left home. I could have just stayed there and froze to death. If that didn’t do the trick, I could have always opted to use one of the remaining bullets on myself.

  Hell, I could have just gone with Ryder and taken a risk. What was the worst that could have happened? He’d end my lonely, miserable life?

  I shook my head at my words even though there wasn’t anyone there to see. Maybe next I’d start talking to myself too. I must have been losing my mind. Or maybe I already had.

  Ryder seemed like a good person, but what did I know. I didn’t know shit. Nothing. I’d known two people my entire life, there was no way I could accurately judge someone’s character after having known them for a few minutes.

  The world I was trying to navigate on my own was an absolute mystery. The only thing I had to go on was what my parents had taught me, and I wasn’t sure it was going to be enough.

  I turned the corner of a brick building, tempted to take a peek inside. Every nerve ending in my body twitched as if they were afraid I might stop moving my feet.

  The vast emptiness beyond the city was in full view. It wouldn’t be long before the city was behind me and I would again be consumed by the desolation and loneliness of the outside world.

  It could be my last chance to find a few supplies. There could have been something left behind that I could use, or maybe even something to eat.

  It wasn’t worth it.

  Was it?

  I heard a thud of boots in the snow behind me and quickly turned to look over my shoulder. There wasn’t anything there. I turned back around and was face to face with a slender, scummy toothed man.

  “Hello,” he said, his face smudged with dirt. He wore a knit hat that had been ripped. Threads dangled in front of his smiling face.

  I sucked in a sharp breath, but I didn’t move. A feeling of dread set in.

  “Well, now,” he said through his gross teeth. “Look what I found.”

  I worked to control my breathing as I slid my hand around my side trying not to make any sudden moves. I needed my gun.

  “Uh, uh, uh. Please don’t do that,” he said tapping a dirty knife at the center of my chest.

  “I don’t want any trouble.” My voice was beyond shaky.

  “No one ever does. I’d be worried if someone,” he sniffed loudly, “came up to me and said ‘hey, I want some trouble.’ Yeah, that’s definitely something that would be cause for concern don’t you think?”

  I couldn’t say anything. I just stared into his lackluster eyes trying to see if I could figure out exactly what he wanted from me.

  “It’s weird though,” he said squinting at me. I could hear more boots crunching in the snow behind me. “You don’t have the marks on your face.”

  I shook my head.

  “Perhaps you have them somewhere else then,” he said. His eyes brightened with excitement, and I could feel mine filling with fear. The widening grin on his face told me he knew it too.

  Before I could even make a move, hands wrapped around my arms. The gross-toothed slender man jerked his chin forward, and they dragged me backward.

  I tried to dig my feet into the snow to slow them, but my feet slipped around. I couldn’t get any traction. My stomach tightened into a knot, and I couldn’t think straight.

  My dad had prepared me for this… or at least we’d both thought he had. But it was happening, and I couldn’t for the life of me, think of how to get myself out of the situation. My mind was a complete blank.

  Even if I managed to get away, I was outnumbered. How far could I even get? They were holding me. I couldn’t reach my gun.

  They dragged me several feet away before pressing my back against what felt like a metal post. It was jagged, and I could feel the coolness through my jacket.

  “Let me go!” I shouted, jerking both arms at once.

  I broke free, but my feet slipped out from under me. The slender man laughed as the other two grabbed my jacket and yanked me right back up.

  “Tie her up already! She’s fiesty,” the slender man said, all excitement gone from his eyes. It had been replaced by something darker.

  One of the men held me while the other yanked off my backpack. He tossed it off to the side to free up his hands. Even though I couldn’t get to it, I was thankful they hadn’t taken my gun.

  I jerked my arms around trying to get free, but they were quick with the rope. They worked in unison perfectly. If I had to guess, it probably wasn’t their first time tying someone to the exact post I was held against.

  One of the men tied my hands together in front of my body. The rope was so tight, the smallest movement made it feel like sharp blades were slicing into the skin at my wrists. I clenched my teeth and tried to hold still.

  Using the same piece of rope, the same man dropped down to his knees and tied my feet together at the ankles. The other man smiled at me as he pulled out a second rope and tied it around my waist, knotting it behind my back.

  I jerked forward to test the strength of the post. My body barely moved at all, and the men all looked at one another before chuckling. They were proud of their work.

  “Check her pack,” the slender man said as he picked at his front tooth with his fingernail.

  The sound of the zipper being pulled down cut through the air. He started pulling out all of my things one after the other. My blanket was carelessly tossed into the snow, along with my change of clothes and my food.

  “Good stuff in here,” the man going through my backpack said.

  I couldn’t pinpoint my exact feeling as I stood there helplessly watching him rifle through my backpack. Terrifying. Distressing. Invasive. Furious. They sifted through my personal items, without a care. As if they had some kind of right to them.

  “Why did they send you out alone? And with all this stuff? Seems kind of foolish,” the slender man said looking around. “Is this some kind of trap?”

  “Yeah, it is, and if you don’t give me my things back and let me go, they’ll come over here and kill you,” I said without giving my words any thought. It would only take seconds for them to realize my empty threat.

  The slender man’s eyes slowly scanned the mostly leveled city. A sinister grin sprouted on his face when he turned back to face me.

  “Liar,” he said stretching out the word. He took small steps making his way closer to me. I flinched as his hand jerked toward my neck. “I’m curious.”

  He pinched the metal tab hanging of
f my jacket zipper and pulled down slowly. His eyes focused on my neck.

  I swallowed hard as I tried to work to get my hands free without slicing too deeply into them. The rope was just too tight. I locked my elbows and tensed my muscles as I jerked both hands upward.

  My balled-up entwined fingers smacked him just above the groin. He grunted and sneered at me.

  “Hold her!” he shouted, and the men instantly obeyed. They grabbed my arms and held them over my head. The slender man roughly pulled the zipper down the rest of the way. My jacket split open, and the cold air slammed into my chest.

  He grabbed the hem of my shirt and yanked it up to my chin. I shivered as the cold sank through my skin and into my bones. The slender man placed his icy, dirty hand on my stomach.

  “Mmm… soft. No markings though,” he said grinning. He leaned closer, his lips inches from my ear. “Your skin is so smooth… so perfect.”

  He slid his hand higher, moving slowly toward my breast. I fought back the tears that were threating to roll down my cheeks.

  “If the markings aren’t up here,” he said curling his fingers under the band of my bra before changing directions. His hand moved back down my stomach. “Then they must be down here.”

  My lungs squeezed together. It felt like I couldn’t take in any oxygen. Everything around me started to swirl together. The only thing I could see was the guy’s disgusting, smiling face.

  “Don’t. I’m not one of them,” I said.

  “So, you are a liar.”

  The man close to my backpack chuckled. “We knew that when she said they’d come for us if we didn’t let her go.”

  “Just let me go,” I begged.

  He clicked his tongue and started moving his hand toward the button on my jeans. “I have to know for sure if you are one of them. Because if you are, you’ll go back to them and tell them about us. And we don’t want that.”

  “I’m not one of anyone!”

  “There’s only one way to know for sure,” he said popping open the button on my pants. There wasn’t anything I could do to stop the single tear that leaked out of the corner of my eye. It felt like a blob of ice was sliding down my face.