G Hopf: Driver 8: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel

“I’ll be down at the beach waiting on them,” Joselyn said and headed out.

Kyle was making his way to the door when Tiffany called out to him, “I’m coming with you.” He stopped and waited.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m scared,” Tiffany confided.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit freaked out but you handled it nicely in there. We need to keep our heads. Clearly the world has gone to shit and soon we’re going to have to explain it to the kids.”

“I know, believe me I’m already thinking about that. How do you say the world has ended to a bunch of kids without having them meltdown?”

“You can’t, this situation is fucked, pardon my French, but there’s no easy answer. Just know that I’m here to help anyway I can, let me know what I can do,” Kyle said.

She reached out and took his hand.

He looked and gave her a reassuring smile.

Squeezing his hand she said, “I can’t tell you how happy I am you’re here.”

“Tiffany! Tiffany!” Josh hollered from across the camp.

She turned and asked, “What?”

“The power, it’s down, nothing is working,” Josh answered, his tone sounding stressed.

“This is a camp, right?” Kyle joked.

“Hold on, the power’s back on!” Josh hollered.

“That’s the backup generators, do me a favor, turn off all non-essential items, we’ll need to preserve fuel,” Tiffany hollered back.

Josh gave a thumbs up and ran off.

“You’re like a bad ass general, calm, cool, and collected,” Kyle quipped.

She winked at him and said, “It’s called being the oldest of four and a dad who was a Marine. C’mon let’s get those kids.”

“Tiffany, wake up,” Joselyn said nudging her.

Tiffany opened her eyes and shot up. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Josh, he took off, took the rest of the food and one of the trucks,” Joselyn said.

“How? Who was on watch?” Tiffany asked swinging her legs out of bed and stretching.

“It was George, I found him unconscious after showing up for my shift. He told me Josh approached him, they talked and when he turned around he got hit in the head. That’s all he remembers.”

“Where’s Kyle?” Tiffany asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think he returned yet from his run.”

“That son of a bitch, I knew I couldn’t trust that mealy-mouthed asshole,” Tiffany said getting up and putting on a fresh shirt. “Did you get an inventory of the food?”

“Tiff, he took everything.”

“Literally, everything?”

“Yes. He cleaned the shelves out. He said something to George about heading to Wisconsin to see if his family was still alive.”

Headlamps from a vehicle shot through the window.

“It’s Kyle,” Tiffany said racing out of her cabin.

Kyle exited a truck and could see the look of concern written all over Tiffany’s face. “What happened?”

“Josh, he left and took all our food, everything,” she replied.

“Damn it. Any idea when he did this, maybe I can track him down.”

Joselyn came out and said, “Over an hour ago, he’s long gone by now. George said he said something about going to Wisconsin.”

“Well that asshole will have a tougher time. There’s bandits on the roads now. I barely got away from some. It’s not safe out there anymore, people are desperate, in need of food, fuel, you name it.”

“What are we going to do?” Tiffany asked.

Kyle walked to the back of the truck, reached in and pulled out a box of potato chips. We have these.”

“I think we’re going to need more than a large bag of chips,” Tiffany scoffed.

Kyle smiled, reached back in and pulled out a huge box and said, “There’s like forty bags in here and the warehouse I found off old highway eight had a stack of these same boxes all the way to the ceiling. Plus there’s more, I found oatmeal, cereal, and rice; sweetheart I think I might have found the motherlode. At least enough to keep us fed for a bit.”

“These bandits, how far out did you encounter them?” Tiffany asked.

“Oh, six miles north.”

“We need weapons,” Tiffany said.

“Agreed,” Joselyn said.

“I’ve been looking, nothing. The one gun store I came up on was ransacked,” Kyle said. “I agree, we’re going to need weapons to defend ourselves here because it’s only a matter of time before someone not nice shows up.”

The sounds of screaming children came from a bunkhouse.

The three took off running.

Kyle reached the bunkhouse and burst through the door to find several of the kids had their flashlights beaming on a spot in the far corner of the cabin. He looked and saw Vivian hanging by the neck. “Oh, Christ.” He ran over and grabbed her lifeless body to see if there was any hope of saving her but the second he touched her he knew she’d been hanging for a while.

Tiffany followed by Joselyn raced into the bunkhouse. Seeing Kyle struggling with Vivian’s body, Tiffany went to help while Joselyn went to care for the children.

“Why, Viv, Why?” Tiffany asked.

They got her body down and laid her gently on the floor.

Joselyn had long taken the kids out of the bunkhouse so it was safe to talk candidly. “Are we going to survive?” Tiffany asked.

Kyle gave her a sympathetic look and replied, “Yes. Yes, we are. I swear it.”

She came over and buried her head into his chest. She looked so small next him with her five foot five stature.

He lifted her chin and gave her a light kiss on the lips. “I promise. I won’t let anyone or anything hurt you or those kids.”

“Now what?” she asked.

“We bury her first, then regroup. Today is a new day. I’ll head out in a few hours to continue scavenging.”

“But you just returned,” she said embracing him tight.

“I need to keep looking and we need weapons.”

Kyle made the last turn and stopped at the main gate for the camp.

George appeared from behind a tall pine and opened it.

The two waved at each and Kyle proceeded into the camp. He had been out scavenging daily but each day was growing more and more dangerous and he still hadn’t come across any weapons. He was tired, frustrated and beginning to grow concerned. Soon the limited supplies they’d found would run out, things were getting desperate.

George had been putting his native survival skills to work but to date he hadn’t caught enough to make a dent. There were twenty-three children, same as when the bombs dropped. Not a single parent had showed up. It was beyond sad. On top of the children there were six adults left. A large number to feed with only small game animals and what few items Kyle could find. With Josh taking all the camp supplies two weeks before he had all but written everyone off.

Kyle parked the truck but hesitated from getting out. Bored he turned on the radio and flipped it to the AM frequencies. He’d done this before but only found static, for some reason he thought he’d try again. He pressed the scan button and watched the numbers race up. They zoomed past seventeen hundred and started up again at five thirty only to stop at six hundred with a crackling voice coming over. He sat up and listened.

“…this………… States government broadcasting…… Cheyenne…… Air…… Anyone receiving this message…. is…. need of assistance. …… to coordinates 38.7445 degrees north, 10…… degrees west. To anyone listening,… is the United….. government…. from Cheyenne Mountain…… Station…”

He jumped out of the truck and raced directly to the camp director’s shack hoping to find Tiffany.

Joselyn walked by with several children in tow.