Behind Our Walls Read online

  James was already out of the parking lot and trudging up the road, bag slung over his shoulder as he stared off into the distant horizon. He didn't bother to look back and in that moment, Sophie wondered if he even cared about any of them. Corrine moved to walk off after him, Adam following close behind. Corrine paused long enough to throw a quick, spiteful look back as they moved out, sending a clear message that should Sophie choose to follow or not, it made no difference to her.

  "God damned child care," she said as she picked up her bag and made her way towards the road, Rowen walking alongside. She looked up at him, that patient look on his face that centered her and also made her want to put her fist through it. "You know that if you hadn't been here to help me through this, I would have probably ditched their asses a long time ago."

  Rowen smiled as he looked down at her. "No, you wouldn't have."

  Sophie shook her head and looked off across the fields around them. She didn't like encouraging his belief that he knew her so well, even though this often seemed to be the case. "I'm just trying to say thank you, idiot."

  "Fair enough."

  They walked in silence for several minutes.

  "I'll give you this much," Rowen said finally. "If we had tried to tough it out in that gas station much longer, we might have ended doing ourselves in from some kind of monoxide poisoning."

  He was trying to disrupt the awkwardness, but she shifted her attention as she looked up at the other three. Her sister, the husband-to-be and her father. It hadn't been that long since she had counted at least two of those as being firmly on her side, a core part of her being. Now she found herself lost in her own reality, fallen to pieces inside of this world, already reduced to ash.

  "You've got to give them time," Rowen said, noticing her glare. "I know how frustrating it is, but they can't keep this up forever. Eventually they have to come out on the right side of this."

  She snorted, a laugh that felt cruel, even to her. "You clearly haven't been paying enough attention to my sister's moods. And whatever she feels, that piss-ant that she's picked to spend the rest of her life with will feel the same. I can promise you that."

  "I know it seems that way, but eventually they'll recognize what you're doing for them and—"

  "But what am I doing for them? Really?" Now she turned to face him. The others didn't bother to stop or slow, but she knew that they weren't going to be getting very far. "Seriously, what have I done that's so great? Doesn't feel like much from where I'm sitting."

  "Well, they're all here, aren't they? Better than a lot of people can say. And what exactly do you think you could have done differently? It's not like there's any such thing as an emergency siren for when the government is about to collapse. Or to give you a heads up that the military is going to go crazy and try to create command authority over the public at large, or that—"

  "I know. I just feel like we've been making mistake after mistake. My mother..." This time she faltered and tried to cover the sob that rose from her throat with a volley of fake coughing.

  Rowen didn't answer at first, looking at something over her shoulder as he tried to collect his thoughts. Sophie glanced up the road, and saw that James was looking back at them, although the act seemed merely obligatory.

  "You know," Rowen said, "I constantly think about things and how everything fell apart. How it all seemed so harmless. Little hiccups. Problems here, issues there. None of it suggested where we might be headed, or what could be waiting for us. If someone had told you what was going to happen in a few months, you would have called them insane. But, next thing you know, the President is getting whisked off into the protective bunker and before anyone can even really figure out what that meant, nuclear bombs are going off all over the world."

  "I was there too, Rowen."

  "My point is that even if you had had a crystal ball, what exactly do you think you could have done? Frankly, I don't see how our situation could be any better. There are dozens of ways they could be worse, though. You think I don't beat myself up, everyday? I can't tell you how much I'd give for a few more minutes with my girls, for the chance to try this all over again."

  It occurred to her how little she really knew about him, despite having been in such close quarters over the past year. It had likely been luck, coming across him along the side of the road that day. She didn't know what she would do without him, but there were still moments when she caught herself wishing that she knew more of his story. She looked up and saw that the others had become tiny specks on the horizon. They resumed their walk, increasing the pace to try and catch up. After a few minutes, they found that the rest of the group had come to a halt, just short of a fork in the road.

  "We want to go up that way," James said, pointing to the left. Sophie looked up, noting that the pavement came to a halt after about a hundred yards. The dirt road went up and wound its way into the hills.

  "Why?" Sophie asked. All she could imagine was sore knees and backs after leaving the concrete behind.

  "The main road is too dangerous," James said. "Besides, there might be somewhere up there we could stay for a while."

  Sophie looked up at Rowen and could see the same concern in his eyes.

  "Okay," she said, "but don't you think that we could be putting ourselves into more danger if we end up walking onto someone's property? What if you spook someone who's already barricaded into their farmhouse and they come after—"

  "We're going up this way," Adam snapped at her. She shifted her glare towards him, furious at his need to insert himself into every argument. She was tired. Tired of playing the parental role for all of them and she suspected that the votes were against her. As tempting as it was to walk off and leave them behind, the prospects of letting them go on their own made her shudder in apprehension. She nodded at Rowen.

  "Fine," she said. "Let's get moving."

  -5-

  The sun was almost completely out of sight, the last tendrils of light chased away by the whiplash of night. They trudged up the road, now going up at a steep incline. Tall trees flanked them on each side. Corrine and Adam were in the lead, with James lagging behind, half heartedly. Sophie and Rowen followed along in silence. She felt like they were just ascending up and up, until the road would dead-end and they would be left trying to find their way back down in the dark.

  "We need to stop soon." She tried to use a level tone of voice to avoid inciting a rise out of the others. "Even if we're just sleeping along the road at this point, we can't be wandering around when we start to lose light."

  She noticed Corrine and Adam speaking as they slowed to a stop. Turning back, they made their grand proclamation. "We can stop here. There's a clearing down a ways from the road where we can camp."

  Sophie managed to stifle the immediate urge to retort. The fact that Rowen had the most experience and survival skills made their show of bravado absurd. She looked off into the forest around them and shook her head. There was no point in arguing as it would just make things worse.

  "Fine," she said.

  "I'll get everything set up." Adam's voice seemed to suggest that they should all be bowing down and scraping for his magnanimous generosity. "Corrine is going to go ahead and scout for supplies."

  "You don't—" Sophie forced herself to stop, pinching the circulation out of her nose as she struggled to keep control. This was still just a long excursion for them. "You shouldn't go off on your own," she said. "We have no way to stay in touch and we have no idea who might be up there."

  "There's no one," Adam said, the smirk nearly acting as the match, tossed into Sophie's pool of rage. "We would have seen someone by now."

  "Unless they didn't want you to see them," Sophie pointed out.

  "Christ. Fine." Corrine snapped as she turned to glare at Sophie. "Come along. I don't care. Just keep quiet. I don't want to waste all this time talking about our feelings."

  Sophie looked at Rowen and nodded. She wanted them to have this time to themselves. She had to
jog to catch up as Corrine was clearly not interested in waiting. Her assumption had been that after a few minutes, Corrine would not be able to resist the urge to lay into her, and that would be the foot in the door that she needed to get all of this hostility out into the open. Her sister's stubborn streak proved true however and she marched on, barely paying attention to Sophie.

  "Can you at least talk to me?" Sophie asked.

  Corrine let out a harsh breath, but didn't slow. "Not much for listening, are you? I told you that I didn't want to talk."

  "I just don't understand why you and Dad are shutting me out like this. What am I supposed to be doing?"

  This time Corrine did spin around to face her. "There is nothing you can do. That was pretty much settled back in Dad's shitty van when Mom was killed."

  "Corrine, that wasn't my fault, you don't really—"

  "Think that you killed our mother? No, of course not. You didn't pull the trigger. But when things were starting to fall apart, it was your brilliant idea for us to leave town and head for the cabin upstate. You were convinced it would be safe up there and no one would bother us. Never mind the twelve hours of driving we would have had to do in order to get there. And that was assuming that the roads stayed open, instead of getting taken over by psychotic, trigger-happy soldiers."

  "I had no way of knowing that things were going to happen so fast. I thought we had time!"

  "Well, we obviously didn't, did we? Even now, you can't even admit that you were wrong."

  "I'm not denying that I was wrong. I'm just saying that if you had picked a different option, the same thing could have ended up happening. Or it could have been you, or me or Daddy who got killed. We all could have ended up getting killed. There's no way to know."

  Corrine nodded and grinned, but the smile seemed no more than skin deep. Sophie saw the real emotions her sister felt, wrapped up in the single tear that streaked down her cheek. "Yeah, we'll never know now, will we? Very convenient."

  Sophie started to reply but Corrine spun and resumed her walk up the road. Sophie shook her head and trudged along behind. It was like their conversations were on a constant loop, always ending at the same, pissed off destination. All she wanted was to get back to a place of civility, where the two of them could get along without all the blaming and fighting. What terrified her was the thought that it might not be possible. Like so much of the world around them, that state of being for the two of them could be lost forever.

  Corrine stopped, and Sophie drew to a halt herself, looking down and to her right in the direction that Corrine pointed. In the distance, she could see the glow of lights through the trees, what looked like maybe the windows of a small cabin. She watched as Corrine started to make her way down the slope.

  "Wait," she said. Corrine didn't even bother to slow down as she stumbled down the hill. Sophie started to make her way down after her, bracing herself against the spindly trees to stay on her feet. "Wait!" she hissed after her sister. "We shouldn't go down there alone."

  "I'm not alone. You're with me. Besides, how bad could it possibly be?" Corrine asked over her shoulder. "We're in the middle of nowhere, you don't think there's a bunch of rovers down there sitting around the dinner table, playing Canasta, do you?"

  Sophie wanted to point out the idiocy. They needed to get back and bring the others along for support. But it was clear that her choice was either to go along, or turn back to go for help, leaving Corrine behind. Nothing was going to convince her sister to alter her course. Besides, what happened if it got too dark and she wasn't able to find this spot again? For better or worse, Corrine was forcing her to come along. She squinted down at her feet in the low light, trying to keep from tripping on a clump of thick grass or exposed tree roots.

  Maybe it would all be fine.

  -6-

  Each window of the house exuded a warm, inviting light and Sophie couldn't help but wonder where they could be getting the electricity. Corrine glanced back, as if momentarily seeking approval before reaching out to tap on the door. After a few moments, Sophie heard a chair scraping across the floor, followed by footsteps. The door opened and a flood of warm air rushed over them, followed by jazz music from inside.

  The man who greeted them looked to be in his late forties and Sophie's first thought upon seeing him was that he looked military. He was roughly their height, slightly taller with a slender frame. She saw a tattoo peeking out from under the sleeve of his shirt. Some inner voice immediately warned her that they needed to be on guard, but Corrine stepped forward to greet him.

  "How are you folks doing tonight?" he asked, glancing back and forth between them. After a moment, his face reddened and he shook his head.

  "Sorry. Stupid question. You all need some help?"

  Corrine nodded. "We've been on our own for a while, just been looking for anything we could use."

  "I can imagine. Well, the things you see around here need to stay, they belong to me. But you're welcome to come in and rest for a while. Any others besides you?" He peered past them, as if he expected more people to descend on the house from the woods.

  "No, it's just us," Corrine said. Sophie felt mildly satisfied that at least her sister wasn't a complete idiot.

  He nodded, again shifting his gaze between the two of them. Sophie couldn't shake the awkward feeling that they were being evaluated, sized up. "Well, if you two want to come in and have a bite to eat, you're welcome."

  Sophie knew that it was the last thing they should do, the pinnacle of all the stupid ideas that had ever been given voice. They didn't know anything about this guy or who else might be inside, waiting for them. Still, they followed him into the house which, to her surprise looked immaculate. It reminded her of their grandparents house. She spotted a bowl of some kind of stew or thick soup on the table and the smell made Sophie's stomach immediately clench as a wave of desire crested through her.

  "Take a seat. I'll make you up some bowls."

  Before she had her bearings, she was seated at the table with a bowl of beef stew and a glass of water.

  "Sorry I can't offer you anything more adult for your beverage," he said, sitting down. Sophie caught another whiff of the aroma and immediately felt dizzy. It was filled to the brim with the most amazing looking food she had seen in months. After a few minutes, there were second helpings for each of them and Sophie was starting to feel disoriented. She couldn't remember the last time she had eaten so much at one time.

  "I'm surprised the two of you made it so far out here without running into trouble," he said. "My name's Reggie, by the way. Retired Army."

  "Sophie," she said through a mouthful of beef, nodding across the table as well. "This...Corrine."

  He smiled and nodded. She swallowed, and washed the stew down with some water. "What's been going on around here? Have you heard much?"

  Reggie shrugged. Vaguely, in the back of her mind she wondered at how he made even a gesture as innocuous as that seem sinister. "Just what they reported on the local news until I lost the signal. But I've heard a fair amount of the crazy, coming over the short wave there. Don't know how much of it is true but I suppose it don't take much to figure out that things are really going to shit."

  "But you haven't seen any other people?" Corrine asked.

  Again, with the shrug. "I hear gunfire every now and then, but no people."

  "You just keep to yourself," Sophie said.

  "Yeah, that about covers it," Reggie said. "Crazy ass world out there, and the two of you look like you pretty much had front row seats."

  Sophie spooned another portion of stew into her mouth and used that as an excuse to ignore his implied question. At least Corrine was keeping her mouth shut. She looked like she was about to fall asleep in her chair. Maybe Sophie could use that as a reason for them to excuse themselves from the table. The thought of the others, huddled up next to the road made her feel stabs of guilt. Besides, something bothered her about Reggie. There was a glint to his eye, something lurking beh
ind that thin smile. She couldn't help but think that his concern for them and their well being was just an act.

  She wanted to steer the conversation towards him and his background, but when she tried to form the question, her tongue kept getting caught up on the insides of her mouth. She flexed her jaw to try and work out the unexpected kinks. As she shook her head to try and clear out the cobwebs, she looked up at the walls all around them, the pictures in varying sizes of frames.

  Her hand with the spoon dropped to the table.

  Every picture had the same elderly couple in them. There they were at the Eiffel Tower and in another, she could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. Here was one at Disney World and another at Niagara Falls. The same couple in every picture.

  Reggie wasn't in any of them.

  This wasn't his house.

  There was a heavy sound, and she dragged her head up to see that Corrine had slid out of her chair. Sophie looked towards their host and the entire room dipped as she did so. It didn't feel like she was falling as much as the chair had lifted up to tilt her out. As she hit the ground, she heard the sound of Reggie's chair moving and the floorboards groaning as he got to his feet. She had just enough time to wonder what he was planning on doing, and if they had missed their last chance of walking out of here alive.

  -7-

  "Oh, Jesus."

  Sophie and her mother turned at the sound of the glass shattering on the floor. Her father stood in the living room, the expression on his face slackened with dismay and fear. She never would have thought it possible to see it on that face, the source of all her security and comfort for so many years. To see that visage, reduced to such hopelessness made her blood run cold, even before she ran into the room and turned to see the footage running on the special alert.

  The mushroom cloud over Berlin rose slowly, expanding into the sky above. She had become intimately familiar with the image, but only in the context of black-and-white documentaries about World War Two and Hiroshima. Putting it here, in full color, froze her in place, unable to form a complete thought. The footage was played on a constant five second loop. Already, there were reports of the dead easily reaching the tens of thousands. She couldn't move from where she stood, the world spinning around them uncontrollably. Barely a week ago, the President had been taken down into the emergency bunker with no explanation to the media. It seemed a hell of a lot clearer now. No one was stepping forward to claim responsibility, and no one knew how it had happened.