Before the virus was unleashed upon the unsuspecting world, Lou had anticipated a global collapse. His obsession alienated him from his colleagues and peers, and slowly began to grate on his neighbors as well. He had a bomb shelter in the backyard, a locked shed full of supplies, and a library of books that covered home remedies, botany, and alternate power. It was all he could talk about, all he thought about. And soon those closest to him discounted him as crazy, openly mocking his hidden shipping containers filled with canned goods. Until everyone realized Lou had been right all along. By then, it was too late.
“Our plan was Vegas,” he said, his voice still muffled. “Hoover Dam can run for years without humans. Did you know that?”
Darla couldn’t muster genuine excitement.
“Who would imagine that Sin City would become a Mecca for travelers in a post-apocalyptic world? Of course, the stench. All those people dead in the casinos, it would be a prime breeding ground for disease. A cesspool right now is what I’m imagining. Of course, away from the Vegas Strip might be enticing, but I don’t know. Isolation is the key. And if you stay isolated, they won’t get you.” Lou talked fast and quick, eager to share his knowledge.
“Oh yeah?” Dean questioned, shuffling along. “Who wouldn’t get you?”
“I’ve called them the Sweepers. Don’t know who they are or where they are coming from, but they’ve been hitting cities, suburbs.”
“How do you know?” Darla asked. She slid through the hallway lined with framed pictures of her attackers unmasked. Lou and Cricket’s wedding day: he wore a powder blue tuxedo and the lace on her dress stopped just below her chin and fell shapelessly around her body. They grinned widely. Cricket’s bouquet was mostly baby’s breath with a few red roses. Darla hesitated for a moment before feeling a push against her back, the hand of Lyle prodding her forward.
“There was an AM radio channel some man was broadcasting on a couple of weeks ago,” Lou said. He stopped and turned back to the group, put his hand against the wall and leaned his weight against it. “Figured it was some East Coast locale from the sound of him. He was out and about a bit during the day and the night, then just reading his events out there into the ether like a diary.”
“Spooky,” Ainsley replied. “He didn’t think anyone was listening?”
“Soldiers,” Lou continued, ignoring her, “were coming into his city and trying to flush people out.”
“How?” Dean asked.
“Fires, mostly. They’re letting entire cities burn. This guy was broadcasting when they got him. Yelling and then gunshots, and after that? No radio. It was like there had been an oversight and this guy found it, then they swooped in and cleaned up the mess.”
“Any others?” Darla saw a picture of the twins in high school. Baggy jeans and flannel shirts; Lindsey had thick blonde hair and curled bangs. The brother-sister duo posed with their backs together and their arms crossed, pure joy evident on their faces. These adult children had been silent from the moment they had nabbed them off the store porch. Their family pictures told a story of typical middle-class life in a mountain town: pictures with matching denim shirts; Lindsey on a volleyball team; Lyle playing football.
“No. He thought he was the only one left until the Sweepers came through. We thought we were the only ones left, too, until we heard his voice.”
“You think we’re Sweepers? You think we discovered your little hideout and came to flush you out?” Darla asked.
Lou narrowed his eyes. “Where were you headed?”
She stared, unblinking, in the dark.
“Exactly,” Lou continued. “Secrets mean I can’t trust you. So, until you’re willing to divulge your plan...you’re a potential threat to me and my family.”
“You seen anyone else?” Dean asked, changing the subject.
“The diary boy, from the radio, he had seen others. A family on their way south. Mom, dad, baby. All alive. He had hope of following them, but...” Lou’s nostrils flared.
“He asked about you,” Darla said.
“No,” he answered after a beat. Lyle shifted behind her and Cricket looked to the floor. It felt like the air had been sucked out of the hallway; everyone remained rooted to their places, trying to remember their lines.
“Right.” Darla was unconvinced.
“Well, then, we both have secrets,” Lou answered. “What, exactly, am I supposed to think about you? Gun-toting survivors in a hurry in an empty world? You didn’t know anyone else was alive, but you have somewhere to go?” He narrowed his eyes. “You think I’m stupid,” he whispered.
Darla wanted to concede that he had a point. It was the way Lou’s voice trembled as he spoke to her, or how he couldn’t hold eye contact for longer than a second that made her realize that this family feared them in a powerful and visceral way.
“You don’t make any sense,” Darla whispered back. “Let us go. I’m asking you as a fellow human being.”
“No,” Lou replied. “Not yet.”
With a burst of anger, she pounded the wall with her fist, dark hair from her bun came loose and tumbled into her face, and she wiped her hand across her eyes. A picture tilted and then threatened to drop, and Lindsey scooched past her brother to put it back into place.
“Tomorrow morning, we would have packed up and left,” Darla said. Everyone had paused. They stared at her like she was a bomb about to go off. “No harm to you and this little system you have going for yourself. If we’re so dangerous, why not just kill us? If you thought we were Sweepers, or whatever you want to call them...and I get that, I get making up arbitrary names for things and attaching meaning to them...”
“She was a Raider,” Ainsley added with a nod.
“Yeah,” Darla replied. “Thank you, Ainsley.” Then she turned squarely toward Lou and took a tentative step forward. “A Raider, right. No, I wanted to feel important. Like I had a purpose in all of this. It wasn’t just looting, it wasn’t just trying to trade what I had for what I needed...it was a job. It gave me fewer hours in the day to dwell on all my losses. But you have to understand something... I’m sure you are well intentioned, but if you think you can get people to tell you what’s going on out there by coercion, and then things will be better, they won’t. You’re just someone else who has hurt us.”
“You’ve suffered a lot,” the man stated. He brought up his hand and adjusted his mask.
“Lou, you’re nothing but a roadblock to me.”
“And you are potentially dangerous to me.”
“Yeah,” Darla nodded. “If you don’t untie us, put your weapons away, and let us walk outside of this home tomorrow morning, then there’s no potential about it. I will be dangerous. Count on it.”
Cricket made rabbit and mashed potatoes and gravy. The whole kitchen smelled gamey and sweet; the prospect of a warm meal usurped their anger and exhaustion. It was difficult to be simultaneously angry and grateful. Darla picked at the white rabbit meat with a plastic fork and, despite the rope around her ankles and her pounding headache, she devoured every bit of the food provided to her. The Hales sat and watched; Cricket sat like a pleased housewife oohing and aahing over every enjoyed bite.
“You’re not afraid of the rabbit being contaminated?” Dean asked as he took another bite, a small fluffy white piece of mashed potato stayed in the corner of his mouth. “One bite of rabbit and then,” he made a noise and drew his finger over his neck.
“Oh,” Cricket smiled. “These aren’t wild rabbits. We’re breeding them for meat in the basement.”
Ainsley choked a bit and then set her fork down against the side of her plate. She pushed the plate away. “A family slaughterhouse? No, thank you.”