Rise From the Ashes: Lena's Story Read online

  Table of Contents

  Art for Back Jacket

  Title and Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Back View

  Rise from the Ashes

  Lena’s Story

  by Laura Franklin

  Copyright 2013

  This book is created:

  For the Rabbit

  Chapter One

  I have to write this down. What is happening is too unbelievable, and I'm afraid with all that’s going on I will forget things if I don't write them down. Or I will forget in what order things are happening and get confused.

  It wasn't hard to find a blank journal, since all the stores are empty now; one small broken window and I'm in the bookstore. I grabbed all the blank journals on the shelf, as well as the plant ID guides and other stuff like that. Then I scooted back to camp.

  I want to start this from the beginning, the way I became aware of what was happening ... first of all the flash and bang - but it wasn't just one. There was the far off flash/bang, maybe Boston? Then a closer one, maybe Keene NH. Then drifting clouds of toxic gritty stuff. It wasn't well done. I guess it was more like allergies - if you reacted, you were a goner. If you didn't ... well ... now it's survival mode, isn't it?

  Survival. Do you think you know what that really means? Here is when I knew the world was in survival mode. I was just going into the forest, following a stream up a ways to get to the cleaner, fresher water higher up the mountainside. Something made the small, fine hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Really, it was creepy, a feeling like some monster was just behind me and about to reach out with a slimy paw to rip me up. Close enough to what was about to happen.

  I had frozen in place when I felt that feeling. When I thought about a claw ripping me up, I drop to my knees and whirled around – right when the gun when off! Bark flew into my face from the bullet’s impact on the tree next to where I had just been standing. I felt the sting where the flecks of tree nicked me, knew there was a little blood, but I also knew I had to get to cover and then get help. I frog hopped to my left and crashed through the forest for a few running steps, then did a zag in another direction and dropped behind a big fallen tree. Holding my breath, I listened for whoever was behind me. Sure enough, I heard the careful crunching of someone walking on the leaves.

  I reached back and pulled the gun from my backpack. I had just learned how to shoot a few days ago. Guess I was going to be put to the test early on. I’m a cute girl, up until now the stickiest situation I’ve been in is not getting the class I wanted in college. All I had to do then was flash a smile and open my green eyes really wide. That got the guy working behind the registrar counter to change the date on my add slip and then a few excuses about not finding the room to the prof and I was set. Now I’m crouching here holding a gun, listening to footfalls come closer and trying to decide when to pop out from behind this tree and blow another human away. Or get blown away myself.

  I wasn’t shaking. I thought I would be, but I knew the score. Survival. I took a slow deep breath and eased along keeping the tree tight against my right shoulder. That way it could steady my aim. I did it smooth and fast, easing forward on a knee with the gun first. I saw him. I pulled the trigger. The sound echoed through the trees and I couldn’t hear the thud when he hit the ground, just saw him drop like a rock. My ears were ringing from the sound of my own gun.

  I had never seen this guy before. A total stranger. I walked forward to get a better look. As I leaned over him I heard the click of a trigger being pulled back. It was a little muffled from my ears still trying to adjust, but there is just no mistaking that sound.

  “Bitch.”

  I put my hands out to my sides, “I give up. Who are you?”

  “Shut the hell up. All I want is your backpack.”

  I could tell he was shifting his weight to get better aim, aim to shoot me and miss my backpack. A backpack filled with empty water bottles. Life was cheap.

  I was getting ready to try another desperate zag when I heard the gun shot.

  I hadn’t moved. I was trying to figure out where I might have been shot. Nothing. But the guy behind me had fallen down and I could see his arm and the hand holding his gun. They were flung out and nestled down in the lose leaves.

  “You ok?”

  It was Mick!

  “Thank heavens. How did you get up here so fast?”

  “I heard the gun shot. But really, I had a creepy feeling beforehand and had already started up after you.”

  “Do you think they were following us? Are they Taliban?”

  Mick walked up to stand beside me. We both took a good look.

  “No. Just guys that lost their way. Lost what it means to be a human. Let’s go get that water and get going.”

  It was good news that they didn’t look like Taliban bad guys. That meant we were still ahead of them. Mick didn’t consider the Taliban group as professionals, but we did know they had numbers behind them and lots of weapons. So even poorly trained men in large numbers could overrun our towns.

  One thing I figured out with Mick - it really couldn't have been professional – as in a professional army or CIA or something like that. If pros did it -whatever those bombs had in them would have been like anthrax or small pox or something that would have basically killed us all. Whatever it was must have been created in some basement lab somewhere. I have no way to figure out how many are dead or what percentage of people made it. My small town just north of the Massachusetts border lost much more than half the people. That was from a quick count of bodies. God. Bodies.

  After the shit hit the fan, many of the others headed to Boston or New York. I call it AB; After Bombs. That is really the way I think of it now, and it seems to make sense. It was a globally defining attack.

  I still can’t figure out why so many people I knew headed to Boston and New York, towards where the bombs hit. Why the hell?

  I guess they just needed to be around other people. Not me. There is something that makes people mean when they live in a city in normal days. Well, what were normal days. I can't imagine how horrible it will be now that there are no food trucks coming into town - almost no police. No way. I’m staying here in Vermont where I have a horse, a garden and a few people who I have known my whole life. Plus Mick.

  Oh - OK - to whoever may read this ... I'm Lena. Say it like leaning. I guess I hate it when people say my name like a movie star – Lane-a, hate it. I'm 19 years old and was born and grew up in Brattleboro, Vermont. Basically a nice little town, a city to Vermont -but a little town to the rest of the U.S. Or what was the U.S.

  I've got dark blonde hair and green eyes. I suppose I'm pretty, more athletic than model-like. I was taking college courses with a major in Public Relations. How funny is that now? There isn’t a “public” anymore.

  Think the bombs and survival mode is the unbelievable part? Wrong. We have been thinking about that stuff in movies and books for years. I guess it kind of mentally prepared most of us for some sort of invasion, chemical or otherwise. No, the dreams are the creepy part. I don't know if people who have survived in other places are having them - and the dreams don't seem to be showing things according to how time works. That is why I had to start this - get this down on paper so I can read it later and try to make sense of it all.

  Back to the start again
, sorry I'm wandering around. The bombs went off, the nearest one was about 2 or 3 hours away. Maybe that's why there are still people here. I rushed home, but there was nothing I could do.

  Dad was dead on the couch, he had been surrounded by Kleenex, the sneezing fit must have never stopped. That is the way it seemed to work on most people. Just like an allergy, then bam, dropping over dead. Not even blood really. Maybe a little around the nose. It's been a few months now, so I can write about it without tears falling all over the page. Dad was a great guy and he made sure after Mom died that he did everything for me. It was just us.

  So I cried for a few hours then went back outside to see if my neighbors were there or dead too. That's where I figure that over 50% of us just died right away. Pretty much there was crying and shock from us "lucky" ones. Then Doug reminded us about the bomb.

  "We've got to get some radios working and see what’s going on.”

  Doug is a 40 something neighbor of mine, sells furniture. Stable kind of normal guy. Now his eyes are bugged out big, he has sweat all over him, he is one step from running around in circles. Still, he is trying to get a handle on things, put some order to the rest of the day. Once he had our attention he cleared his throat and tried again. He looks a little like a grown up Opie – you know from that Andy Griffith show? I never liked his red hair, but whatever, he is trying to do something, and right now anything is better than standing around.

  “Come on, let's go to the police station."

  Off we went in a little group. Sheriff Edwards was still with us. As in, not dead. Our Sheriff is kind of sexy but older. He is tall and fairly thin with muscles everywhere. He’s got brown hair, a little longer than a buzzed cut style. Grey is peppered all over his head. I don’t remember ever seeing him out of uniform. He’s a real solid guy.

  He had the doors wide open and already a crowd was gathered in the main reception area. Edwards was behind the counter fiddling with a radio. Nothing was coming in on it. Static.

  It was a few days before the radio received anything but canned pre-taped music - it was from some little town in New Hampshire, relaying information to anyone out there with a radio. So far our electric grid was still up - this is day three into the collapse of our modern world. Day Three AB. Most things must have been running on automatic or with a skeleton crew (pun intended).

  We got a small glimpse into what had happened now that the radios were finally broadcasting. Turns out that the Taliban got ahold of some ships. They already had the bombs ... analysts were saying that the virus in the bombs must have degraded while they were in storage - that is why so many of us lived through the bombs. So many. Wow is that a relative term now. So those freaks hit Europe and North America with their bombs.

  Then they came at both U.S. coasts to kamikaze anyone they could until someone would finally shoot them to their own special hell. While this was going on, the civil wars in Spain and Greece tanked the rest of Europe, I guess wireless updates say that the whole place from Finland to France and Spain to Turkey is just one big war zone. The governments have all collapsed.

  Mexico and South America were not bombed, but now that the big guns (the U.S.) were occupied in just surviving - real riots, mass murder and chaos broke out there - no way we were getting help from there - they had drug lords against each other and then everybody else down there.

  There were a few places relatively unharmed, New Zealand, other small isolated countries ... but the whole global game had just imploded and with no stocks or infrastructure - even the rich were now not rich.

  You had what you had and the reset button was finally pushed. Owned a swanky jet plane? How nice for you, you have maybe one trip's worth of fuel - better choose your destination wisely because you won't be flying again. There it is - you have just what you have and what you can keep others from taking away from you. But people didn't realize this at first. I certainly didn't.

  Four days AB and we got another radio message - seems bad guys were killing cops now. Now the anarchy really started. I started to feel what life was really going to be like if we lost hold of our civilization.

  Like I said, a lot of people thought they should head to some bigger cities like Springfield or Keene, even Boston and NYC - safety in numbers and all that. Something told me that wasn't going to work right now - not yet when everything was wildly out of control.

  I packed up a backpack with my favorite things and decided I was heading to the country club to be just outside of town. Close enough to walk back into town in an hour but far enough away to get a head start into the woods if I needed to.

  This seemed to not mean much, but I think it was the key to my survival, to our survival ... on the way out of town, heading west on Harris Place, I did my first smash and grab. I wanted a hoodie, a dark green one so I could blend in. My old one was white. No good if someone is looking for you in the forest. So I bashed into this new age yoga place, Alli Pacha, (no kidding on the name) and picked out a nice soft hoodie.

  On my way out my eye was caught by a rock - a rock in the shape of, oh, I'd say like the Washington Monument. It was a very pretty soft rose/white color and just seemed luminescent. I reached out for it. The tag said Rose Quartz. Who cares? I rolled it in my hoodie and stuffed it all in my backpack. Told Sheriff Edwards where I was off to and why, he seemed to agree with me. Then I was off into hiding.

  That night was the first time it happened.

  I picked the county club because the rich fools were going to think they were still safe in their homes, the golf course was kind of up and above the main part of Brattleboro, plus it was all rolling lawns so I could see anyone approaching. The club house and tavern was built like an old southern planation mansion, yellow with a deep wrap-around white porch and white columns. I could stand back against the wall and look out and I figured no one coming up the drive would be able to see into the shadows. I kept all the lights off and decided to bunk down in the pro shop, I guess I felt it was safer than sleeping in the open dining room, but really, if some bad guys shot up the place, I was doomed either way. I used my backpack as a pillow and finally drifted off to sleep.

  This was what? The fourth or fifth night AB. I was thinking about being alone. Thinking about leaving Brattleboro, but not knowing where to go and while I didn’t want to head to a city, I also didn’t want to run off all by myself and turn into a wild hermit either.

  I had not slept well at all since the flash/bangs, my sleep had been fitful and restless. This night, when I finally fell asleep I seemed to drift right into one of my favorite dreams. Me doing some sort of Public Relations work in the White House. Then I am sure I slept deep and normally.

  Near morning I remember another dream. There was a guy I had never seen before walking along a railroad track. Sandy blonde hair, brown eyes with a little scruff on his face. He was built really well, I could tell because he was in a short sleeved army green type of shirt with his arms looking just fine in the sun. His pants weren't camo - just the kind of tough pants with pockets all over, a plain tan color. I can't explain it, he seemed to be walking toward me, but I was not in this part of my dream. It was like he was far away, but walking in my direction. I wasn't frightened - not like he was after me or anything. I actually felt like I wanted to run out and lead him back to my hideout.

  Well, I laughed at myself, I could do worse than dream about a cute soldier heading my way to protect me.

  Then I woke up. Unlike most dreams, this one did not get fuzzy and fade away. I figured it was because that was all I had to concentrate on. We still had power, I guess I could have watched a DVD - but all the TV stations were off the air now.

  Not much happened on day five AB, I got bored really quick and started feeling stupid for bugging out of town. I showered up in the locker room realizing that if things got back to normal, I was way too funky. If things got worse, I better enjoy a hot shower while I could.

  I munched on lunch from the country club kitchen. Still bored out of my head, I de
cided I would, just for kicks, walk down to Brattleboro and check in with the sheriff – catch up on the news and maybe, just maybe, stroll along the railroad tracks on my way back up here.

  But it was more than a casual thought if I want to be honest. I felt pulled, obsessed, to walk those tracks in the afternoon sun.

  Chapter Two

  His robes were drenched. Father Steve Polus looked around him, he had been knocked unconscious, fell on the beach - now the tide was lapping at his feet, the beach was deserted and it was mid-morning.

  He had been dreaming about a small town by a river or lake in the mountains. He had never been there before, but felt like it was a safe and wonderful place. Young people had been talking and cooking and relaxing in the evening sun. Coming fully awake, Steve looked around him at the sparkling sand.

  His memories came flooding back to him - the blinding flash, the bang that was still echoing in his brain. Jesus help me, it was a bomb! Was it a nuke? Steve looked around … no people. He had to see if anyone needed his help. He had to get to his church first to see if any of his parishioners had made their way to the church.