Jessica
She was sure she had long outrun the men from the parking lot, but it wasn't until she heard the metal gate lock with a loud clang that she started to feel safe again. She held one of the bars, gripping it tightly in her hand, and tried to regain some composure before she had to face her daughters. The hysteria was rising up inside her, making her insides feel like they were on fire. She ripped her water bottle out of her pack, dropping her pack on the ground in her intense attempt to open the bottle. Calm down, she ordered herself, you are squeezing the cap too hard. Finally she got the bottle open and tipped the now warm water to her lips, chugging it down. When she finished the last drop, she dropped the bottle and sat down hard on the ground. She put her head in her hands, feeling scared and disapointed in herself for being scared. Then she started to laugh.
She had gotten all the medication she needed and gotten back home without a scratch. Those men had tried to grab her and she had gotten away. She wished she could have seen the looks on their faces when they watched her speeding off. Find someone else to torture today you assholes, cause I am faster and smarter than you. Jessica had done it. And she had done it alone. RickyJo would be proud of her. And while the doubt would creep into her mind later, in that moment, Jessica knew if she could make it alone, her cousin was going to be just fine. Jessica collected herself and wiped the tears off her face. Then she headed up to the house to let her family know she was back.
It was two days later when the man came for them. Jessica and her daughters were out working in one of the barns. She felt a strange rumbling sensation. If she had to describe it, she would have said it felt like what she would imagine a minor earthquake would feel like. She guessed maybe a large tree feel in the woods somewhere nearby or maybe some of the goats or sheep were ramming at each other again. A person without any farm experience would be surprised how hard they could hit each other when they really got going. But then the animals started running around like crazy in the pasture. They had heard the men before she did. Cassie grabbed her sister and mother by the arms and pulled them into the barn. She wasn't sure what was about to happen, but she knew it was going to be terrible. Then they heard the yelling and another crash, louder this time. Jessica guessed from the direction of the noise that it was their front gate being rammed in.
The men came in trucks, some of them pulling up into her Nana's flower beds in front of the main house. One man drove his truck through the wooden fence on the goat pasture and drove around in there, trying to run over as many animals as he could. A tall man near one of the trucks in the front yard was yelling for him to stop. They could eat those goats later, stop running them over. The man turned the truck around, heading back out of the pasture. On his way he swerved and ran over Desiree's pet goat that she had been raising for 4H before the outbreak. It made a sickening cracking noise and then the goat was screaming in pain. Jessica held tight to her daughter to keep her from running to help the animal. The men kicked in the front door of the house and ran inside.
"Nana's in there," Cassie whispered to her mother in horror. Jessica looked around. They didn't even have any guns out here, they were all inside the house. She could grab a pitchfork, but those men would shoot her dead before she got close enough to use it on them. One of the men came out of the house dragging Nana by her hair. He was yelling at her to tell him where the woman was. The one with the red hair. "He means you Mom," Cassie said. Now Jessica knew these must have been the men from the parking lot. She had been stupid to think that none of them followed her. The tall man took hold of Nana and pulled her forward, down off the porch into the front yard. It was obvious that the old woman wasn't going to tell them where her family was, but maybe they could draw them out.
"Come on out or we are going to kill her," he yelled. Then he turned and slapped the old woman so hard across the face it knocked her onto the ground. Another man knelt down and started ripping off her clothes.
"We have to help her, they are hurting Nana," Desiree said through her tears. Jessica was thinking the same thing. But she was older and smarter than her daughter. She knew if she showed herself they were not going to stop hurting her grandmother. Not only that, but if they found her daughters, they would likely rape them as well.
"We can't help her," Jessica told her girls, "we have to get out now." Then she grabbed them each by the hand and headed for the back of the barn to go out the other side. She was thinking about where she could take them. Any of the buildings on the main property would be searched soon. But they had no food or supplies to try and leave with. Then she remembered the cabin. Jessica never went out there much, but RickyJo went all the time, and she kept her guns out there and a lot of beer and wine, plus some food and a first aid kit.
"Where are we going to go?," Cassie asked her mother, turning back like she wasn't sure she was ready to give up yet on trying to fight the men.
"The cabin," Jessica told them, "Run fast as you can for the back gate behind the vineyard, they don't know the cabin is out there. We can hide there for a little while." Cassie nodded and Desiree just looked like she was in shock. Jessica slapped her youger daughter lightly across the face to wake her up. "We have to run or they are going to get us," she told the girl. Desiree nodded. "You girls move fast and stay with me." Then they headed out the back of the barn. The last noises they heard were the fading screams of the girls great grandmother as the men assaulted her.
The tall man looked over the items in the back of his truck. Even though the red haired woman had gotten away again, this had been well worth the drive. To bad the men had bashed the walls in in a few places or they might have been able to move in here. As it was they had plenty of food and even some animals to take back to camp with them. One truck was loaded with two of the solar panels and the boxes they would need to make them work. At least he had been able to talk the men into bringing those along. Loading one truck with booze had been the compromise.
Now they were heading North, back to their camp. A few of the men were still complaining about not finding any more women there. When they were spying, they had seen the red hair woman and two girls that looked like her only younger and with a darker complexions. The tall man was thinking about how stupid these men were. All they worried about was finding women when most of them had wives or girlfriends back at camp. He often thought that if any of them ever thought about laying a hand on his daughter, he would lose what little of his mind he had left and kill them all.
They were about a half hour from their camp when the tall man slowed his truck down. There were a bunch of biters swarming around a van. This could only mean there was someone alive inside. The men got out and took out the biters easily. Then the tall man opened the back door of the van.
"Oh hell," the dirty man exclaimed, "its just some half dead asshole, shoulda let tha biters have 'im" The tall man knew the dirty man had just been hoping there was a woman inside that he could have his way with. That was really all the man thought about. The guy in the van did look pretty bad though, even the tall man had to admit that. He was missing one hand and the spot where it used to be was burnt and bloody and disgusting. It was clear the man must have cut it off himself. And a man like that could be very useful to the tall man. In that moment everything he had been thinking about became suddenly clear in his mind. He was going to take over this group and this man was going to be the one to help him do it.