State of Chaos (Collapse Series) (2 page)

Plans rarely pan out. Especially for me. I’m like a bad karma magnet, something Chris can attest to. I met him when I was escaping the city. He was wounded, I helped him, and in exchange for a ride to his family’s home in the foothills, he helped me survive.

Too bad our car got stolen by a group of desperate rioters. We had to travel by foot, and in the process, we passed by Omega emergency relief camps. Only they were being used as concentration camps, killing people off. Taking over. We came to the conclusion that maybe Omega sent out the EMP as an excuse to take control of everything and yeah…they pulled it off.

Long story short, now Chris and I are on the run from Omega. My dad, as far as I know, was taken by Omega officials and imprisoned as a war criminal because he wouldn’t go to a “relief camp.” Chris’s family, his parents and his brother, were taken, too. Their house was burned down. A friend of ours named Isabel was also arrested.

So now it’s just the two of us.

We’ve been keeping a low profile in the foothills for about two months. Omega officials would love to arrest us and ship us off to a happy harmonious death camp, but we’re not really into the whole execution-without-a-trial thing.

We’re not even criminals. The only thing that sets us apart from the masses is that we
chose to avoid the concentration camps and stayed off the radar rather than take the bait. That makes us a target, I guess.

Sucks to be us.

Chris, as a Navy Seal and a special ops guy, has kept us fed. The dude can make a meal out of a piece of grass. It might not be great for the taste buds, but his skills have kept us alive. And I’m learning from him, too.

I’m pretty good at finding shelter, locating at least
something
edible, and keeping away from danger. But while I tend to go into shock in the middle of an intense situation, Chris is the one who goes into battle-mode and takes control, usually saving both our butts.

So, yeah. He’s cooler than me. Before the EMP, that would have bothered me a lot more than it does now. I would have had to one-up him at everything, but since my life depends on things like finding food or avoiding getting shot by an Omega soldier, I just don’t go there.

Conversely, Chris is
way
out of my league. If we hadn’t been forced together when the end of the world came crashing down around our
ears, there’s not a chance he would have been romantically interested in me. I mean, I’ve never been into self-deprecation, but I’m not exactly dream girl material. I never had a friend in my life, and my idea of a wild night out on the town was picking up Starbucks before hanging out at the library for three hours, reading Edgar Allan Poe.

My social life was a little lacking, obviously.

Chris, if doomsday hadn’t popped in to pay us a visit, would be dating some hot swimsuit poster girl for the Navy otherwise. He’s
that
gorgeous.

To me, at least.

When you’re in love with somebody, it’s hard to see anything wrong with them. Even though I’m crazy about him, I can’t get rid of the feeling that he’s only interested in me because we’ve been forced together. Literally. Our families are both in a prison somewhere, if not dead, and we’re the only ones who care enough to find them. We need each other, and that makes the lines between friendship and romance
blur. I mean,
you
spend twenty-four seven with somebody for three months and see what happens.

So what’s our plan? How are we even going to find the prison or camp that our families have been taken to? We don’t really know. We just figure that they’ll do it somewhere they can publicize it, where they can make an example of their “criminals” and scare people into submission.

There’s only one place we can go to look for our families: the city. But
what
city? What
state
? What
building
? It’s an impossible rescue mission, but thinking about it and working towards it – even if it’s never going to happen – gives us something to hold onto.

It gives us hope.

Chapter Two

My grandpa used to have a favorite quote. “Give me a ship and a star to sail her by.” Well,
I
just want a car. Any car. A decrepit piece of junk from an underhanded car dealer would be better than what we have: Nothing.

Nothing but our feet and a couple of pairs of socks that are worn through with holes. I’m tired of eating whatever scraps we find in the wilderness. I want a Big Mac and a strawberry smoothie. Unfortunately for me, the rations in my backpack aren’t doing anything to grant my wish. After two months, all I’ve got left is a handful of camping materials, some water purifying tablets, a knife (a gift from Chris’s brother, Jeff) and a plastic bag with one serving of coffee.

We’ve been saving that last one for a special occasion.

Lately we’ve been doing our hiking, hunting or foraging – whatever we’re doing to keep alive – during the night. It keeps us from freezing to death by staying active, and it’s easier
for us to avoid detection if we’re not skipping across an open field in broad daylight.

Right now it’s barely dawn. Streams of early morning sunlight are breaking through the fog, giving everything a weird in-between appearance of day and night. On the edge of the field there’s a worn chain link fence. It’s the property line of a trailer park, and for us, it’s going to be our camping area all day.

“I hope there aren’t any creeps hanging around here,” I murmur.

“They won’t live long,” Chris replies.

I wait for him to smile, but apparently he’s not joking. I decide to blame it on exhaustion as we approach the chain link fence surrounding the property. It’s falling apart in some places so we’re able to squeeze between gaps in between the metal. The trailer park is dotted with trees and picnic benches. Useless cars are parked near most of the houses, and by the looks of the broken blinds in some of the windows – and the condition of some of the trailers – it’s hard to tell if everything’s been vandalized since the EMP or if this was just a bad area.

There are no voices, no sounds. But it’s early and most people, if there’s anybody here, will be sleeping at this hour. Chris waves me forward as we creep between the trailers, pausing beneath windows or doors, listening for sounds. How are we supposed to tell if anybody is inside? I whisper this question into Chris’s ear. He shrugs. “Look through the window.”

“Are you kidding? All of your tactical knowledge and expertise comes down to sticking my head through a window?”

“Look, I’m tired,” he says, stifling a yawn. “I checked this place out earlier.”

“What? When?”

“When you fell asleep last night…when you were
supposed
to be keeping watch.”

“Ah. Right.” I cough. “Sorry.”

“Go ahead,” he says, challenging me. “Look.”

I sigh, hating when he makes me do things just to keep my confidence levels up. Must be a military thing. I creep underneath a trailer window without curtains or blinds, slowly bringing my eyes over the windowsill. I peer
through the dirty glass, seeing nothing but an empty living room.

“Looks safe,” I say, giving him a thumbs up.

Chris nods.

“It is.” He stands up and strolls up to the front door, working with the doorknob for a few seconds before popping the lock. “After you.”

“Are you trying to get me killed?”

He finally laughs.

“Cassie, I was here earlier. I wouldn’t send you into a trailer cold turkey, would I? I’m just messing with you.”

I raise an eyebrow. He chuckles again, swinging the door open and taking the first few steps into the trailer. I wait at the threshold, listening for any suspicious sounds. I stifle a scream when Chris jumps out of the shadows, grabbing my shoulders. “Gotcha.”

I rake my hands through my hair, heart racing.

“That was
not
funny,” I say, feeling sick. “I really didn’t need that.”

“Yeah, you did. Don’t let your guard down for a second. Remember that.”

“Sure, sure.”

Chris slides two fingers under my chin, tilting my head up.

“I’m just trying to help you,” he says, kissing my forehead. “Come on. Let’s eat.”

I lick my lips, wondering how a guy so
logical
can get so much enjoyment out of scaring the crap out of me. Only a
man
.

“Dusty,” I remark, wrinkling my nose and closing the door behind me. The trailer home looks nearly thirty years old, complete with wallpaper from the 80s. There’s a tiny kitchen, a living room with puke green carpet and a hallway in the back of the house. “I’m guessing this place hasn’t been cleaned since it was built.”

“Probably an accurate assumption,” Chris replies, dropping his gear on a couch. “Whoever was living here is long gone.”

“What about food and water?”

“Let’s check it out.” Chris shrugs his jacket off, keeping his favorite knife sheathed in a strap around his thigh. “Here.” He helps me remove my
backpack, rubbing my sore shoulders for a few minutes. I lean against his chest, finding myself wrapped into a warm hug.

“You don’t hug me enough,” I sigh.

Totally embarrassing. But hey, it’s the truth.

I feel his mouth turn up into a smile against my forehead. He draws his hands up my arms, pausing to assess me from head to toe. “You’re right,” he says at last, his green eyes sparkling with amusement. “I don’t.”

I laugh.

“Come on. Let’s get some dinner.”

Chris looks extremely disappointed when I slip out of his embrace and walk into the kitchen. Everything smells stale and pungent. A few dirty coffee mugs are sitting in a sink that dried up long ago. Post-it notes and magnets are stuck all over a dead fridge.

“I wonder who lived here,” I whisper, struck by the weirdness of standing in somebody else’s home without permission. “I wonder how old they were.”

Chris shrugs, leaning against the doorframe, watching me carefully. I bend down and open up some of the oak cabinets, finding dishes and junk. There’s nothing in the fridge that’s not already rotten, but in a cupboard above the dishwasher, Chris finds some canned goods.

“What have we here?” he muses, tossing me a can.

“Pears!” I exclaim, excited. “And beans. Okay, wait. Pears, beans
and
soup.”

“But what kind of soup? That’s the question.”

“Corn chowder. It’s still good.”

“Let’s get cooking then.”

So we do. As strange as it is to camp inside somebody’s old trailer home, I adjust quickly. Anything’s better than sleeping outdoors again. The winter has been brutal – lots of rain, snow and fog. Being able to take my shoes off and walk around on the carpet feels great. No mud, no ice, and no bugs.

Chris is in an unusually good mood, which means he finds plenty of reasons to tease me
about my non-existent cooking skills. But let’s face it. There’s not a lot you can do with canned food during an apocalypse.

“Smells good,” Chris says, studying a heavy mirror in the living room. “Hey, Cassidy…?”

I recognize a level of sneakiness in his voice, so I turn around.

“What?”

“Ever leave a secret message in a mirror?”

“Please. That’s a Boy Scout trick.”

“Boy Scout?” Chris feigns an offended expression. “Honey, I was an Eagle Scout. It’s not just a simple trick.” He leans against the wall. “I left a lot of messages for my mom on the bathroom mirror…” he trails off, swallowing.

Silence fills the room. I know what he’s thinking. Is his mother even alive?

I blink back tears and get back to cooking. I can’t think about that right now. There’s no electricity, obviously, but the gas line to the house is still good so all I have to do is open the burner and light the stove with a match. I’m
cooking the beans and soup in one of the pots I found above the sink.

“Hand me those bowls, will you?” I ask, gesturing to a stack of plastic mixing bowls I dug out of the cupboards. “We’ll split everything.”

I give a bowl of soup and beans to Chris, and I take what’s left of it.

“Gourmet food,” I say, raising my bowl in a toast. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.” Chris can’t find any silverware so we just tip the bowls back and sip the hot food. It’s delicious, and it trumps eating a field rodent or some random plant any day.

“So what now?” I ask, the two of us lounging on the beat up sofa in the living room. “Are we going to live the rest of our lives in an abandoned trailer park?”

“Not a bad idea, actually,” Chris smiles. “I can think of worse things than being trapped in a confined space with you.”

“Your attempts at flirting are falling flat,” I say, sticking my tongue out. But I’m lying. I love it when he flirts with me. “I’m serious. What’s our next move?”

“There’s not a lot we can do.” Chris finishes up the rest of his soup, rubbing his chin. “We don’t know where they are. We don’t even know if they’re -”

“-Don’t,” I interrupt, nausea spreading in my chest. “They’re
alive
.”

Chris says nothing, just picks up our empty bowls and walk into the kitchen. I get a sinking feeling in my stomach every time we bring this up, but we can’t wander aimlessly in the wilderness for all eternity. We have to have a
plan
. We need to at least find someplace to live so we don’t freeze to death when winter comes around again.

“What if they took them to Los Angeles?” I say.

“What if they took them to San Jose? Or San Bernardino? Or San Francisco?” Chris stalks out of the kitchen, clearly not in the mood to discuss the loss of our families. “They could be anywhere. We don’t have a choice but to stay here and be smart, Cassidy. Impulsive action will get us killed. We have to be patient and thoughtful. We can’t rush into anything.”

I fold my arms around my knees, pressing my face into my legs. Over the past couple of months, I’ve stopped crying about losing dad and the Young family. I’ve become almost numb to the entire idea of being alone. It’s amazing how fast I’ve adjusted to living in a post-apocalyptic world. It makes me wonder if I spent way too much time reading fiction when I was in high school – reality just doesn’t freak me out anymore.

“Cassie?” Chris gently slides his hands through my hair, pushing back the scarf tied around my forehead for warmth. “We can’t go looking for people who’ve completely vanished. Our focus right now is
surviving
. If we put ourselves in unnecessary danger, we’ll get killed.”