rattled off the new plan while Troy tried to digest it.
“I’ll try,” was all Troy could manage to say.
“Try hard. I don’t want everyone knowing what happened. If it comes down to just having to get rid of the boy too…I will. Go, before Lynn gets here and sees you,” Allen said, giving Troy the same shoo motions with his hands that he had given Derek and John a few moments before.
“That way?” Troy asked, pointing as he ran across the ash-drifts in the parking lot.
“Yeah, that way!” Allen called, willing him to hurry.
“Where is he going?” Derek asked, a mouthful of food making him hard to understand.
“Don’t worry about it. You guys will see soon enough. Get in your truck and follow me when I leave. We are going back to where you worked, John. We have to get going before people start coming out here,” Allen whispered, hoping the brothers would just listen to him.
“Dude, this is bullshit,” John said, just loud enough, but he still fell in behind a dour, silent Derek, who had already started walking towards his truck.
Not long after the doors shut on Derek’s truck, maybe only a minute, Lynn came out from the chapel, her kids in tow.
“There you are, Allen. Are you ready to go?” Lynn asked cheerily. Her daughters wore wide smiles behind their mother, and small sacks on their backs. Lynn had clearly sold the benefits of Allen’s lies to them with a grand effectiveness.
“Yeah, come on. Let’s take your car. I’ll drive you guys over,” Allen said calmly, with his heart pounding in his ears.
……..
Early that afternoon, Allen greeted the transplanted residents in the church by blowing the air horn on the tractor-trailer packed full of provisions. Questions of Lynn’s and her daughter’s fates, and of how Allen had miraculously “found” the full trailer tucked down a side street, all died away over the evening’s feast.
After much prodding by John, and little argument in rebuttal from Allen, the Brown brothers decided to stay at the BULKCO warehouse. John soon realized that he had gotten out from under Allen’s thumb, only to be placed under his old boss’s fist. He did not have long to rue the ill-fated decision. Two weeks after Allen left with the food, grinding the gears of the unfamiliar truck as he went, The D.o.C. came rolling in. They took the distribution center over by force, in mere minutes. Allen never found out whether the brothers were killed in the ensuing firefight, or executed shortly after it.
People in the group actually seemed more upset about John and Derek’s absence than the Donner’s. In today’s world, to those who did not know their true value, two armed men looked far more indispensable than some teenage girls. Allen just told the group that the brothers had decided to attempt the trip to their parent’s cottage up north. The fact that they had not been allowed to take any of the group’s provisions helped soften the blow for some.
More than just the early morning visitors from the surrounding neighborhood came to stay at the church that night. Troy sat consoling a bereft Bobby Donner in the corner while the festivities went on around them. The party lasted late into the next day, solidifying the group into one cohesive unit.
Allen was celebrated as a hero, by almost everyone.
Chapter 17
Friday, June 4 - 2030
Daniel wiped away the more persistent strings of spittle from his mouth. He had been violently ill for three days now, and the pot containing his vomit was nearing full. This was quite an accomplishment, considering all he had ingested for several days were some sips of water. The orange bile that had just come up from the deepest depths of his stomach warned of his current dilemma. He needed more water, and he needed it soon. Death was not far away.
Rolling his pounding head back onto the sweat-soaked pillow brought spinning spots into his vision, even with his eyes closed. Groaning as he pulled himself into a fetal position, Daniel tried to go back to sleep. His body felt as if it were eating itself inside-out. Something primal told Daniel that, if he slept, he would never wake again.
As much as he loathed his father, Daniel still begged the emptiness for Allen’s return. He was well-versed to the long days alone, even growing to like them in a cheerless sort of way. Daniel could not remember the last time that he actually wished for his father’s return,