The Lucky Ones (Evergreen Book 3) Read online

  The Lucky Ones

  Evergreen Book 3

  Matthew S. Cox

  The Lucky Ones

  Evergreen Book 3

  © 2019 Matthew S. Cox

  All Rights Reserved

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real persons, places, events, or nuclear annihilation is coincidental. No portion of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the author with the exception of quotes in reviews or blog posts.

  Cover and interior art by: Alexandria Thompson

  ISBN (ebook): 978-1-950738-04-5

  ISBN (paperback): 978-1-950738-05-2

  Contents

  1. We’re All a Little Broken

  2. Fate and Circumstance

  3. Barista

  4. Surreal

  5. A Small Light in the Great Dark

  6. Hidden Threat

  7. Playing the Odds

  8. Survival

  9. One Nightmare at a Time

  10. A Box of Ghosts

  11. Too Normal

  12. All That’s Left

  13. Farm Day

  14. Dead Inside

  15. Fish Dinner

  16. We’re All Green

  17. That Time of the Apocalypse

  18. Fleeting

  19. The First Time

  20. The Naked Truth

  21. Staying Positive

  22. Eldorado Springs

  23. Waste of Food

  24. Bad Trip

  25. Revenge in Small Doses

  26. Master Key

  27. Priorities

  28. Dangerous

  29. Schrodinger's Normal

  30. Acting Weird

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other books by Matthew S. Cox

  1

  We’re All a Little Broken

  Somber thoughts followed Harper on her patrol route, gnawing at her wandering mind. Eight months ago, she never would have imagined herself shooting anyone, much less multiple people, much less doing so before finishing high school.

  In all fairness, she also never imagined a roving gang of thugs would try to kidnap her after the total breakdown of society either.

  She didn’t really feel like a cop. Police never had to protect their town from organized raids, or worry about citizens from another town coming to loot whatever they could get away with, even if it meant randomly killing people in their way—probably why Walter and the others decided to call themselves the militia and not police. Most of the original Evergreen militia had been sheriff’s deputies before the war. They also had a few big city cops like Roy Ellis, and a few military vets trickled in later—like Cliff, the man who’d essentially become a new dad to her.

  The Evergreen Militia dispensed with much of the ‘paperwork’ as Walter Holman (the commander) called it, since no official legal system remained. However, they had been teaching her tactics, how to negotiate with bad guys, and so on. Plus, Cliff worked with her a couple times a week on hand-to-hand training. Mostly, he taught her techniques from a modified form of jiu-jitsu he’d learned during his days as an Army Ranger.

  Going into law enforcement hadn’t even been the last thing on her mind before the war. Then again, she hadn’t gone into law enforcement—she’d gone into ‘not dying.’ Ever since she cowered with her family in their basement while nuclear fire reshaped civilization, Harper flew down the long slope of a rollercoaster in a car without brakes, on a track with big holes, her life going wherever circumstance pulled it.

  The girl voted sweetest in class… most likely to kill.

  She eyed the quiet houses on either side of South Hiwan Drive, the trees swaying in a gentle late-May breeze. The clear sky overhead had a few clouds, plus a noticeable haze above them that hadn’t been there before the nukes. It didn’t look too bad, more like the artist who painted the sky had spilled a little grey into the once-rich blue. Except for the complete silence—no car engines, helicopters, or jets—her immediate surroundings didn’t give off any visual indications that the worst disaster in human history had happened. All the houses in sight stood quiet, windows dark. Lawns had grown a bit wild, but not too bad. No one had a working mower since all the gasoline had been used or rotted. A few people had old school push mowers or scythes, and they’d essentially become professional landscapers. Their ‘job’ entailed going around the entire city and dealing with grass. At least, wherever the occupants of homes hadn’t decided to replace their lawns with vegetable gardens. Lawns might look nice, but no one could eat them.

  Harper marveled at the big houses with tons of room between them. Her family hadn’t exactly been poor, but she doubted they could’ve afforded any of these houses so near the former golf course and country club. Few of the original residents remained, which made her wonder what happened to them. Would the people who lived in walking distance of such a place be horrified that their playground had turned into a farm? All the resources that had once been used to keep grass picture perfect for golfers had been put to work feeding survivors of a nuclear war. The long, narrow strips of open land nestled in and among these houses had become lush with corn stalks.

  This new world had little respect for former wealth, perhaps even the reverse—contempt. Someone accustomed to the finer things would be ill-equipped to handle their absence. An executive could wind up starving in an alley right next to a girl like Lorelei whose drug-using mother barely noticed she had a child in the house.

  Harper paused, studying the Mossberg in her hands. Dad’s shotgun. The same shotgun she’d been using since thirteen. Back then, she only killed paper targets, clay pigeons, or sometimes bottles of water, achieving a modicum of YouTube fame for being a marksman prodigy. The gun people adored her as a rising star, some found a child of thirteen winning timed courses against grown men a bizarre curiosity, and of course, others called her parents all sorts of awful things for letting her handle a gun at all. From the first day he took her to the range at like seven, her father had drilled respect for firearms into her head. Intellectually, she’d known she wielded an instrument of death, but it never felt like anything more than a piece of sporting equipment, something to plink targets with and earn points. The idea of pointing it at a living person went against everything she’d been taught and every fiber of her conscience.

  The girl who wouldn’t squish bugs had killed roughly ten people. Of course, they had all been trying to hurt her or Madison. Most of the deaths blurred together in her mind, faceless ‘bad guys’ from a video game like Call of Duty. Perhaps thinking of them that way helped her brush aside guilt. She hadn’t murdered anyone—she’d defended herself, and protected her ten-year-old sister. That she hadn’t freaked out yet over shooting people worried her. She’d been too busy freaking out over her parents’ deaths, nuclear war, the loss of everything she’d known and everything she’d ever hoped for. So, yeah, killing a few thugs trying to kidnap her didn’t really rate.

  Today, however, she dwelled on a more depressing thought: her imminent birthday.

  Next week on June second, she’d turn eighteen. She wouldn’t be graduating high school. There’d be no awesome party with her friends, no cute cake from Mom. Dad wouldn’t pretend to have forgotten, then surprise her like he always did. Madison wouldn’t spend half the day complaining about having to stay home for the party instead of going to hang out with her friends.

  Harper almost couldn’t even picture her little sister acting like that anymore. Mom had kept her so busy with activities, she barely had time to just be a kid. So, whenever she didn’t need to rush off to dance class, or gymnastics, or soccer, or whatever else Mom got her signed up for, she wanted to spend time wi
th Becca, Eva, and Melissa, her three closest friends.

  Only Becca had resurfaced after the bombs. The other two could be anywhere, if they even remained alive. She had no idea how much of the area around Denver kinda survived like her home had, or wound up flat as a parking lot. The difference of a quarter mile could have changed survival to vaporization.

  A lump formed in Harper’s throat at that thought, growing when she thought of her friends. Mellow pothead Darci, Christina Menendez the genius, Andrea Orton also known as ‘Perfect Girl,’ and Veronica Jackson, karate enthusiast. She’d wanted to become the female Wesley Snipes, with dreams of going into action movies. If any of her friends could’ve handled the apocalypse, it would’ve been Veronica.

  Not scaredy-cat Renee. That girl would never last on her own… most likely how she ended up with the Lawless, or the ‘blue gang’ as Harper had thought of them at first. At least she’d gotten her friend away from those bastards before they violated her. Renee had pretended to be younger than seventeen, and it fooled them for a little while. Evidently the Lawless weren’t total monsters, but Harper couldn’t find the least bit of respect for them. When they tried to kidnap her little sister, they reassured them by saying they’d let her get old enough first.

  Harper squeezed the shotgun. The girl who carried insects outside alive wanted to shoot Lawless on sight. Lower than bugs.

  But… birthday next week. The brief burst of anger faded under a morass of sorrow.

  She resumed walking, trying not to think about June second, trying not to think about all the big plans she and her friends had floated around for ‘the big one-eight.’ Having her first birthday without her parents around shouldn’t have happened until she’d grown old. It definitely shouldn’t have been her eighteenth.

  Quiet tears ran down her cheeks while memories of birthdays past played in a loop across her thoughts: her parents smiling, various cakes, Madison going from oblivious infant to happy toddler, to happy little kid to begrudging tween. Friends, a safe home, a normal world, gifts, no thoughts about if they’d have enough food or if she’d have to take someone’s life to protect hers.

  This year, despite it being the big eighteen, she wanted her birthday to go by unnoticed, wanted not to think about her parents and friends who wouldn’t be there for it. What did eighteen even matter anymore? The world didn’t have a legal system. Having to kill to protect herself, having to survive—that made her an adult long before some arbitrary number of spins around the sun did. The town already allowed people her age to have beer, so turning twenty-one no longer held any significance at all, either. Well, no significance beyond ‘holy crap I’m still alive.’

  Jonathan Chen, her brother of circumstance, turned eleven a few weeks ago on May eleventh. She and Cliff claimed a couple toys for him that the militia collected on various scavenging runs from stores like Walmart. Since no one could eat toys, Elizabeth Trujillo, the quartermaster, didn’t ration them too strictly. She wanted to be fair, so one kid didn’t get too many. Considering video games and computers had all mostly died to the EMP flash, the town management decided to add non-electronic toys to the priority list after food, clothing, and medicine due to something about mental health for the kids.

  The boy had worn a happy face most of that day, only succumbing to grief over his dead parents at night after he’d crawled into bed. Harper comforted him until he fell asleep, somewhere between big sister and replacement mother.

  Carrie Rangel, the woman who lived next door to them, had been flirting with Cliff, who—up until only two weeks ago—remained either oblivious to it or overly polite. Perhaps Harper wouldn’t need to be ‘Mom’ as well as big sis for too much longer. Watching the man who had essentially become her stepdad test the waters of a romantic relationship felt awkward and endearing at the same time.

  It also made her question how she felt about Logan. Before the war, she’d been dating this kid Micah mostly because he asked her out and her crew all had boyfriends. There hadn’t been much of a spark between them; she merely didn’t want to be the only one of her friends without one. The short time she’d known Logan felt entirely different, but she also didn’t trust her feelings anymore. After everything she’d been through, what appeared to be affection could have simply been wanting to cling to any source of reassurance—like with Tyler. And that didn’t exactly end well.

  Jonathan’s birthday had been a ‘match day,’ as Mom used to call it. He’d turned eleven on the eleventh of the month. The thought brought a spontaneous chuckle and a wave of longing for her parents. Her match day happened when she’d been two, before she’d become old enough to even comprehend what a birthday was. At least Madison’s match birthday occurred before the world went nuts. October ninth, a touch over a year before some heartless piece of shit pushed the button.

  Harper walked onward, gazing left and right past dirt hills at big houses set back from the relatively narrow road. Madison’s ninth had been a major party due to the match day thing. The parents had taken an entire pack of tweens out to Elitch’s theme park, barely squeaking in before they closed at the end of October. After the park, they’d gone to a restaurant for dinner with cake at home.

  Memories supposedly lasted a lifetime, but in that moment, Harper wanted to forget them all. Bad enough they’d lost both parents, but the entirety of civilization had gone with them. She grumbled to herself, trying to think about nothing, trying to reset her brain to blank out everything that happened before the Lawless killed her parents.

  A few minutes later, she regretted her desire to forget. All she had left of her parents and friends were memories. Even if they hurt more than anything, she’d cling to them. Her mind swung the other way, diving headlong into the happiest times she could remember throughout the years. In short order, thoughts of her parents and friends, moments she’d never have again, brought quiet tears.

  “Madison’s gonna turn eleven this year… right around the anniversary of the nukes falling.” Harper kicked a rock off the road. I hope she doesn’t like start associating her birthday with Mom and Dad dying.

  Overcome by sorrow at that thought, Harper strayed off the road, hiding in a shadowy grove of trees at the corner of someone’s front yard. She sat with the shotgun across her lap, head bowed against her knees, arms wrapped around her legs. Alone with her sadness, she retreated from the world.

  For about an hour, one memory of her parents led to another and another, each progressive snapshot of the past driving her deeper into a hole of apathy. Her grief took the form of silent staring rather than tears, of withdrawing into a shell of not giving a crap. Grace, a new friend she’d made, had been disassociated from reality when she’d first arrived in Evergreen, refusing to accept the war happened, worried she’d fall behind in school and not get into a decent college. Despite knowing it pointless, Harper couldn’t help but feel weird about missing the last eight months of high school. She’d only gone to school for a few weeks before the bombs fell.

  I don’t care if I get held back. I’ll repeat the year if it’ll fix the world.

  The school here in Evergreen, a mish-mash of grades all thrown together, would officially take a summer break soon. Any kid twelve or older would need to spend a few hours each day at the farm learning and doing stuff. Ten- and eleven-year-olds could go if they wanted to. Somewhere, Harper picked up that the tradition of summer break started due to rural communities needing the kids to work on family farms. Like so much else, another relic of 1800s life appeared to have returned.

  We’re all just going in circles.

  At least Madison stopped complaining about school. The teachers here decided to abandon the ‘traditional’ structure and present more practical and useful subjects instead of preparing kids for colleges that no longer existed. Mr. Simon worked with a few of the older kids who wanted to learn more advanced math, but they didn’t force algebra on kids who’d spend the rest of their lives pulling potatoes out of the ground or building houses by hand.
r />   Madison once dreamed of becoming a veterinarian or zoologist. She’d fantasized about possibly becoming a professional dancer, but never really took that seriously. Now, she’d probably end up taking care of chickens and cows—if she could tolerate the idea that most of those animals would end up on a dinner plate. Her friend Christina got accepted at UCLA. She’d wanted to work at NASA. Andrea still hadn’t figured things out officially, but everyone expected she’d end up being a teacher. Renee wanted to go into nursing, but her likely path now appeared to be seamstress. Darci, on the other hand, had already been accepted at a graphic design school. She intended to pursue some sort of artistic career to pay the bills while trying to make it big as a rock musician on the side. Darci played decent guitar and could sing okay, and always bragged she’d be the first of their friends to meet a celebrity, probably a musician.

  The more Harper thought about all the dreams vaporized in nuclear fire, the more she had to struggle to care about anything, least of all her birthday.

  We’re only repeating the same stuff. If society even recovers, they’ll just nuke each other all over again a couple hundred years from now. What’s the point?

  Soon after she began to shed tears over the future they’d all lost, she thought of Madison and Lorelei snuggling up with her at night, both staring at her like some form of superhero who could protect them from all evil in the world. It bothered her that Madison still sometimes acted like a girl half her age, but what ten-year-old could watch both of her parents murdered six feet in front of her and not have an issue or six. All things considered, Madison handled it well.