Jack after the Flash
She'd been in my house. Evangeline Greene had been in my crumbling leaking shack of a house. That thought echoed through my brain like a hammer, I wanted to tear something, hit something, go on a rampage. Foul curses echoed in my mind.
I forced myself to fold the sketch over the tarot card, carefully avoiding getting blood on the paper, and shoving it into a pocket in my jacket. I wrapped my arm up with a rag, tying it with my good hand and my teeth to try and stem the blood and lend strength to the arm. I gritted my teeth in pain. Then threw on my pack and headed out. That pack had my buck knife and my Jack in it. I took a huge draft first. Brandon's phone and the sketches I'd gotten from Evie, a few other odds and ends. I didn't own much. Just survival stuff I'd gotten used to carrying that was useful hunting or scavenging.
That gorgeous, deep blue eyed, five foot, slender, but with curves in all the right places that I'd had the pleasure of touching just last night, with her long, thick gorgeous blond hair, fille who smelled like flowers and tasted like honey and was rich and as perfect as I could imagine a girl being had been in my rotten, dirty, wrecked, shack of a home!
I wanted to get maman up and out, to get her to the church with the others but she was too drunk to move and I was in no shape to do anything.
"Uuggghhhh!" I tried to throttle my bike but my arm screamed in protest and so did I. My life was shit. She'd fucking told me never to come back! She'd had tears in her eyes as she'd accused me of playing her and told me never to come back! I'd had her in my arms just last night!
Clotile. I'd have to call Clotile. I pulled Brandon's stolen cell out of my pocket, to call her, but ma soeur was already riding up on Tee-bo's bike.
"Clotile? What're you doin' here?"
"Evie called me. Said you were hurt! Let's get on your bike. You're riding bitch. I'm driving. Grab your bag. Let's go."
Before I got on with Clotile, with the rain pouring down around us, I put my good hand on Tee-bo's shoulder, got in close and told my podna, "If Evie's prank flier ain't a prank, you find her after and look after her for me. She and her mere, they're alone in that rich ole house. They'll be targets. But they have a farm they'll be growin' food on. They'll be needin' help with that. You hear me?
Tee-bo's face was grave as he took in what I was saying. "I hear you podna, and you know you can count on me to do that for you. But why won't you…"
"Ain't got time!"
I jumped on my bike with Clotile and yelled, "Swear you'll protect them!"
Tee-bo yelled over the bikes and the rain as they both raced on the road. "I swear."
Then we separated, Tee-bo Jandin headed home and Clotile drove us out of town.
I'd gone to my house that morning and made Maman breakfast, toast and eggs. She was passed out. I tried to rouse her, to tell her about the big meet at the church that evening. She'd mumbled that she'd think about it.
Then I'd walked and driven around the parish, delivering notices my podna's and I'd printed up and talking up the food drive. We'd handed out the prank fliers to some teens as well, talking up the "Don't look at the lights" bit, telling them to keep those hidden. When that was done I spent the last of my cash, which wasn't much, on fuel for my bike, supplies, and headed home. I needed to catch supper. I checked on Maman. She was still out. Hadn't eaten the food I'd made her this morning either.
She needed to rouse before sunset, we'd head to the church before then. Or if it turned out to be a hoax, we'd stay here. When I'd caught and cleaned my six fish, and prepared them for supper, I went to check on her again. I turned on the TV loud. Maybe that'd bring her to. That's when the evening had turned to shit. Evangeline in my home. Seein' where I lived, as far below her as possible. Seein' me beat that man, and seein' him fight with me. Seein' ma mere, drunk and passed out. I couldn't even get her to the church. But she'd not be awake to see the lights. She'd keep her eyes shut and the windows were closed. I prayed she'd be fine.
If I'd ever stood a chance with Evangeline before, it was gone now.
As Clotile drove us the half hour through the unnatturally hot rain, I tried to fit in the latest piece of the puzzle that was Evangeline Greene. She'd shown up at my goddamn house. If there was one thing in the world I'd never want her to see, that would have been it. She was from the second richest house in the neighboring parish, and my house was just about the worst house there was in mine. I kept it as best I could, but with no money and no way to get a job, it leaked like a sieve when it rained, looked like the shack that it was, and I'd been ashamed to see her standing in it. I'd been mad as hell that I'd been ashamed.
She'd accused me of playing her. Well I had a bit. I couldn't let my podna get caught lifting all those phones he'd planned to take, not when he was going to lift Brandon's phone for me. He'd sold most of those phones today to a pawn shop, but kept five for us so we could coordinate our plays taking the animals today. He'd used the extra cash to buy supplies for the church drive, asking me, "You sure this fille's not playin' you podna?"
"If she is, I know where she keeps her jewels." I didn't exactly, but it sounded good, and Clotile had been to her room, so she probably knew.
I thought a lot about what supplies would be best to buy. Those northern lights were caused by the sun's rays. The sun shining at night. Fire raining down. Seemed to me like the sun was involved. I'd used my school computer to look up preparing for a solar flare.
That gave me a load of information. Everything electronic would shut down unless it was protected by a certain amount of metal or depth underground. Anything in the stores we could go get after. They'd be free for the taking, but cars probably wouldn't work. Gas pumps…those might not pump anymore. So I directed the guys to get a small amount of cans of soup but mostly five gallon cans of gas.
That night of the party, I'd decided I needed to know more about her. Maybe that phone would have given me enough info to let me know more about her. Maybe not. I had played along with her visions. Truth was, I hadn't been entirely sure the girl wasn't playing me. Hell, she'd even gone so far as to prank three towns with the things. The whole thing could have been a massive play. Her mere had seemed pretty cool. Evie had said Karen was strict. So many things didn't add up. Either the girl was a pathological liar, she was crazy as a loon, or she was some sort of seer. I just hadn't been sure which one. I'd had to play along long enough to figure out which one.
She'd invited us over for study groups which had been unexpected and shocking. She'd responded to my teasing and flirting like a charm, which had been fun.
It wasn't a hardship. The fille was fine, smelled like a flower, and I'd learned she tasted like honey.
I woke last night to find she'd cuddled into my arms, sweet as an ange, her arm around my waist, her leg twined with mine, her head resting on my bare chest, and her long silky hair flowing over my arm. She smelled like sweet dreams. I shifted her onto her back. She never stirred. I brushed her hair out until I could twine it between my fingers in the arm she rested on. I loved how long her hair was. So sexy. Then I brushed her full red lips with a soft kiss and pulled away. Her lips curved up in sleep and she sighed. Her eyes moved under her lids. I wondered what she was dreaming of. She shivered a bit, reminding me of my promise to keep her warm tonight. I tucked my jacket back under my head, and possessively covered her legs with one of mine, my other arm wrapping around her arms and her tiny waist. Mine, at least for tonight.
When I'd woken again, her body had shifted towards mine. Now her face rested against and under mine, her arms wrapped around the arm that covered her waist, hugging it to her. Her legs had snaked between my bent legs, seeming happy to be trapped there. My erection throbbed against her hip, painfully reminding me of last night, and how she'd teased me. I'd frowned, angry at the contradictions she'd presented. Why would she tell me I wasn't special enough to give her virginity to, and then cuddle with me like she couldn't get close enough?
Carefully extricating myself, I'd gotten on my bike and spent the morning watching over her while thumbing through the data on Brandon's phone, hoping to find some answers there. He had a folder of pics labeled Evie and a long log of text messages. Totally unsecured. Rich pompous ass. I opened the pics, unable to stem my curiosity. Evie in a bikini, on a yacht. Gorgeous. I glanced over at her, wishing I'd been able to see her topless in the light of day instead of by the light of the moon. Still, I wouldn't find the answers I needed in the pics. I switched to the texts. At first they consisted of him asking her if they were on for Spencer's and her saying she'd let him know. Then he found what they were talking about. The weekend at Spencers. He'd been asking her to sleep with him. And she hadn't wanted to.
I grinned. Bonne fille. She hadn't given it up to my half brother. I frowned. Then again, she hadn't given it up to me either. Just who was the someone special she was waiting for? What did he have to have? Whatever it was, I'd probably never have it.
The texts went back two weeks before school and then…next to nothing. Brandon's to Evie continued but Evie's practically stopped all together. There was one. Noon on Friday. Nothing, nothing There again, two weeks earlier. Again, Noon on Friday. Now that I knew what I was looking for I scrolled faster. Fridays at noon every two weeks she'd texted Brandon three sentences each time. She didn't say much, just that she'd gotten his texts, that she was thrilled to hear from him. She was bored and couldn't wait for summer to be over so she could see him again. She'd add something for variation but that was about it.
I got through the summer and found her texts picked up with vivacity and that she had tons to say, but I pocketed the phone thinking and frowning at Evangeline where she lay on the blanket thinking. Another puzzle piece. It plucked at my memory, something she'd said just last night…She'd woken up before I had a chance to think about it more and I'd pocketed the phone before she'd had a chance to see it.
She also did some pretty strange things. Like giving up the catch of the parish. Possibly so she could kiss a boy like me. That kind of thing just didn't add up. No sane girl did that kind of thing. Give up the richest boy in the parish who was also her beau, just for the possibility of kissing a poor boy like me with nothing to my name?
But what she did tonight? Driving over to fling one last warning at me? Warning me I had half an hour or less? Calling Clotile to come get me, asking me with those sad eyes if I'd played her, and telling me to never come back.
I was forced to conclude as I felt the unnaturally hot as hell rain on the night of the full moon, that yes, she must have been genuine. And damn. I'd fucked it up with her. And damn it to hell, my mere was in my house alone without protection. My mind raced, thinking of what I could have done. Tee-bo couldn't have carried her on his bike in her condition, passed out and drunk. Dieu, I prayed she'd be ok. I prayed Evangeline was wrong. I knew she was right. Maybe I could make a call with Brandon's phone when we stopped. I needed my good arm to hold on, my cut arm wrapped near Clotile but was in fucking agony. I needed more booze to kill the pain. The muscle had torn somewhere and would need to be stitched.
Clotile drove me to an unlicensed doc in the next parish with a cellar office. We arrived just as the rain stopped and a hot dry wind kicked up. I rolled my bike right to the door. Just as the doc opened the door and let us in, we looked at the sky. Ribbons of blood red and dark purple streaked the sky, just like in the damn drawing Evangeline had shown him not four days ago.
"She was right." I whispered. I stared spellbound, me, Clotile and the Doc.
"Doan look at the lights." I muttered. Then I turned and looked at them, still staring like statues.
"Doan look at the lights!" I yelled. They stared at me. I grabbed Clotile's arm, grinding my teeth at the pain and shoved the doc with my good arm, then I pulled my bike in and slammed the door and locked it behind me.
"Cellar! Now! Clotile, help me with the bike." She took it from me on the other side.
"Why?!" The doc asked, stupefied. The coo-yon wanted to stare at the lights.
"You look at them lights, you're dead. You stand in this house, you're dead. You're in the cellar, you're safe. Cellar! Now!"
"This way!"
Finally! We followed him. We'd barely gotten the bike to the bottom when an almighty roar shook the ground and we fell to the ground, a few items on the shelves in the cellar falling to the ground.
By the light of some candles and a flashlight Clotile held, the doc stitched my arm up while I drank every bit of liquor I had. The doc had some of his own that he'd taken healthy gulps of 'to steady his nerves'. If there was ever a night someone's nerves needed steadying, it would be tonight.
After the flash we met up with a mechanic who repaired the docs car. The doc and mechanic had been all fired up to join a militia, killing baggers. Clotile and I said we'd think about it, we needed to check back at home first. I still couldn't throttle the bike, so Clotile drove us back home. We stopped at my home first to check on ma mere.
She was a bagger.
One of those monsters from Evie's drawings. Her eyes were pale and oozing puss, her skin wrinkled like a paper sack. She stunk like week old garbage, her skin was covered in slime.
When she saw me, she attacked me like a rabid wolf, growling and snarling. There was no recognition in her eyes, no feeling of kinship. Any love or sense of humanity was gone. I'd failed to protect my mother, the woman who'd given me birth, who'd protected me when I was young, who'd raised me.
She came at me with teeth and claws. I ran out of the house, yelling at Clotile to run. I'd grabbed the machette hanging from the porch roof outside and turned to defend myself, slashing at her with it.
She didn't react like a normal being. She just kept coming. I tried to knock her out with the flat of the blade. She just kept getting up. She tried to scratch me with her claws. I cut off her hand. She didn't bleed, she oozed. I slashed her torso, she didn't stop. She should've stopped by now!
Those sketches of Evie's flashed in my mind. Those bag like people biting others, and those people turning into other bag people. Maman's jaws were snapping at me as she crawled across the floor toward me. I couldn't leave her here. Couldn't let her hurt someone else. She was nearly to me. The one hand she had left grabbed my leg and her head snapped toward my leg to bite.
I blocked her face with the machette blade, then stomped on her fragile wrist, hearing bones crunch. Her grip eased and I stepped away. How you kill one of these creatures? I rolled her to her back and gripped her head with my hands so I didn't have to look at her face. I put one knee to her back, pinning her down, then I snapped her neck. That was as clean a death as I could think to give her.
Tears poured down my face as she kept growling and snapping, her arms and legs thrashing. I couldn't take much more. How did you kill one of these creatures? This wasn't just anyone? This was my Maman.
"Jack?" Clotile stood in the doorway. "Mon Dieu. Jack. What…?"
"She woan die. I snapped her neck and she woan fucking die Clotile." I told her. My voice grated from my throat. She crept closer and I growled, "Stay back!"
She did, thank God. Crossing her arms and staring at Maman, thrashing and snarling on the floor beneath me.
Finally she cleared her throat and spoke. "Decapitation."
I looked at her, then looked at Maman. I had to decapitate my own mere. Non. This wasn't ma mere any more. Ma mere had died last night. My eyes narrowed. Beneath the creatures hair glinted the black beads of Maman's rosary. I told Clotile, "I could use your help now."
Together we restrained the creature long enough to get the necklace off her. Then Clotile took it and stood off to the side while I made the cut that finished it off. I kept the crucifix as a remembrance of the woman who'd raised me, and how I'd failed her in the end. I vowed I wouldn't fail another woman under my protection.
I took the rest of the liquor in my backpack and my other set of jeans, underwear, socks and my two shirts. My bowie knife. I didn't have much else.
We stopped at Clotile's place next to pick up enough to fill her pack. She'd decided to stick with me. I was grateful. Thought about checkin' on Evie, but Tee-bo would take care of that. She wouldn't want to see me anyway. We'd said everything we needed to say last night. After what happened with maman, I couldn't get out of this town fast enough. Maybe if I ever found the courage to come back to town, I'd have something to offer a fine girl like Evangeline. But right now, after she'd seen the squallor I lived in, had called me out on how I'd played her, had told me she'd never sleep with someone like me, and had told me never to come back, mais, I couldn't leave town fast enough.
I didn't stop at Tee-bo's. I didn't want him to try and talk me into staying. I got drunk as a skunk that night. And the next night too. Too bad there wasn't enough alcohol to forget. The nightmares of that night kept it fresh.
I learned some skills in the militia, skills were always valuable. Learned to shoot with most any weapon, learned to repair cars and bikes that were damaged by the solar flare. I learned that baggers could only be killed by a shot to the brainpan. I started out as one of the privates, then worked my way up. I hoped that someday, if I ever went back, I wouldn't be someone Evangeline looked down on. She'd know I would be someone she could depend on, someone she looked up to. Then I'd laugh and take a drink. That'd be the day.
I found a charging cord and spent hours upon hours charging a phone that would never make a call, just to look at the pictures of Evie on Brandon's phone and to study the texts she'd sent him. That spring she'd sent him hundreds of chatty texts, then that summer they'd died down to next to nothing. Scheduled, exact numbers of texts. There was something specific behind that. Someone had been restricting her texts. Only allowing her to text at certain times and only a certain number of times. But who? And why? Then I remembered that time she'd made a joke about that. At least, I thought she'd been joking at the time. What had she said
We'd been talking about her getting in trouble for that prank birthday flier…She'd been stressing about her mere finding out. I'd teased her, asking what her merewould do if she found out, cause Karen had seemed pretty cool, not the sort to over react. I'd figured the most she'd do would be a light grounding.
What had Evie said? Probably for three months at least, no phone calls, and limited texts at structured intervals.
She'd sounded so serious I'd laughed, but now as I looked through her texts, I saw, she wasn't joking after all.
I thought long and hard about the possibilities behind that. I thought about those drawings. She'd only had a few to show me. She'd hinted there had been more, but they'd been taken or destroyed. She'd said her mere was strict.
What if her mere had seen the same kind of drawings I had? Had seen her have the same visions I had. Evie had told me she hadn't even told her mere or her best friend about them and that was beyond his comprehension. Now he thought, maybe she had told her mere before, only it hadn't gone so well. She'd asked me before confiding in me, whether I believed in visions, things I couldn't explain. Maybe her mere didn't?
I had thought at the beginning that she was either a liar, crazy, or a seer. What if her mere had gone with one of the first two possibilities? Had sent Evie somewhere that summer. Somewhere she had restricted calls. Something that would make her very cagey about ever saying anything to her mere about those drawings ever again.
It fit. Karen thought Evie was crazy with her visions of the end of the world, her talking to people that weren't in the room. Her strange dreams and drawings. She'd had her locked up with the crazies. Evie had told me, I had played along but hadn't fully believed so she felt I'd played her. Of course she'd be pissed at me.
We stayed with the militia for a long while. No one ever got the drop on me, but then, I'd been watchin' my six all my life. I killed hundreds of bagmen. Learned tricks to it. Got sick of it. Eventually I commanded my own team of men, armed to the teeth. I got to pick the men on my team so that made it easier since I never brought any coo-yons with me. That made things easier. We always came back. My CO appreciated that.
They stuck Clotile in the kitchen. She didn't like that at all. The fille could shoot well, liked to make herself useful. But women were scarce after the flash and the CO wasn't about to put a woman at risk for anything, certainly not for her own sense of adventure. I could see his point, not that I told Clotile that.
As food and resources dwindled, people turned crazy. They started turning on each other, killing each other. Some even ate each other. I saw things I wished I could unsee. Whisky was always welcome.
I picked up a deck of Tarot cards while looting one day and stuffed it in my bag, looked at the cards later that night, remembering the few Evangeline had told me about.
The Fool. His card didn't show any real clues. He held a rose, carried an nap sack and was walking toward a cliff with a dog at his heels.
Death. Not a bad card. Why not? You'd think someone who killed people would be a bad card. His card showed a knight with a scythe, just like a reaper. Maybe he was a puzzle too.
The Devil – Bad card He was a horned creature. Pretty hideous. Obvious guy if you came across him.
The Empress. This sketch of Evie's had been blank. Why? She'd drawn sketches of all the others.
This card showed a woman with blonde hair and a crown sitting in a chair surrounded by a bounty of food. Then I remembered that Evangeline had told me that they'd be able to grow crops at Haven after the flash. Some miracle grow type of fertilizer. Suddenly that story smelled fishy. Was Evangeline the Empress? She'd always smelled like flowers. It was a possibility.
The Lovers -Bad card and the biggest army you've ever seen. It will absorb anything and everything. If you see it or even hear rumor of it, run. As fast and as far as you can. They're spell casters. Hypnotists.
About seven months after the flash, I was getting a bad feeling, and it was nagging at me somethin' terrible, so I arranged to take a turn at scouting duty, try to see if I could scratch the itch. My CO thought this wasn't a bad idea, so he told me to take my team where I wanted, gave us a truck and a couple bikes, rations and fuel.
One day, six days drive Northeast of Sterling, when we were scouting, we heard multiple shots fired on the horizon where a town stood.
That had spooked us so we ran in the opposite direction toward a high hill where we took cover out of sight. Using binoculars I saw an army of mammoth proportions. I saw them shooting anyone who was resisting. Taking men and women into the camp, supplies, everything, swallowed up, just like Evie'd said.
I sent two men back to camp with a warning, telling them I said we needed to be ready to bug out and our team would be back with more intel directly. It was nearly dusk so we waited a couple hours and snuck closer, setting a trap for a couple men pillaging the town. I figured we could use more intel on this army. Once we had the two captives secured in the truck, I headed back to camp on my bike and my team followed at high speed in the truck, driving through the night. It was a good thing we had reserves of fuel and didn't have to stop to scrounge.
We made it back to camp at noon the next day. The first thing I did when I got there was find Clotile and tell her to grab her gear, fill up my bike and bug out of camp. To meet me west of camp. We were leaving with or without the rest of the company just as soon and I briefed his CO and XO. I met with them, brought the doc along as a reference. Told them about the girl I'd met so long ago who'd had visions, her warning. Threw down the sketch and matching tarot card that never left my bugout bag. I told them what I'd seen, and they could do what they wanted, but I was leaving now to warn the girl that had warned me so long ago. I told them about the "gifts" I'd brought along in the truck. They could interrogate the men at their leisure.
I was headed out. I didn't know of any force that could stop an army that large short of Texas. Everyone knew Texan's carried gun's like they carried wallets. I figured they'd do best to head there. Sterling, Louisiana was on the way.
The commander respected me, I'd been a great team leader, scout and scrounger. But I knew this sounded crazy so I honestly wasn't expecting much. The doc vouched for me. Decent of him. So when they talked it over and decided they'd follow me West I couldn't have been more surprised. Pleased, but surprised. So the whole outfit bugged out and headed west. I was told to take a bike with a tank of gas and a few spare cans in my saddle bags. The rest would be no more than an hour or two behind us. They'd meet up in Sterling, Louisiana.
It was about a four days drive for the army, and they had three days on the Lover's army. Clotile and I on my bike could probably make it in two or three. On a bike we could weave around the road refuse that cars and trucks would have to reduce speed or even go off road to steer around. Maybe I could give Evie enough time to get her ass gone. I just hoped the warning would get me back in her good graces, though I didn't expect a warm welcome. As the saying goes, I frankly hoped she wouldn't shoot the messenger.
A/N This is probably one of my favorite chapters. I loved getting inside Jack's head. I felt's Cole hinted at how Jack's Mom died. He wouldn't talk about how she'd died, we knew she'd been left behind in his home. He said Karen had died in grace, what more could you ask for? I don't know if Jack had a ranking in his militia, but I think we all believe a guy like Jack would be deserving of one. Right? His thought processes in the timeline of things are a bit disjointed, but life is like that. Hopefully y'all follow along without it being too confusing.
There are three or four Haven chapters and a Tennessee interlude. Then we have a bunch of Jack pov chapters of him at Haven where he takes stock of things, figuring out what all he's missed and putting puzzle pieces together, giving y'all a picture of where his head's at. Then the Journey chaps. I've got it written all the way through the end of Poison Princess and outlined until she gets kidnapped by Death. This has turned out to be a monster of a fic y'all! I can't believe I've written all this in only three months!
Leave me love please! I'm needy that way. Plus, I'll update quicker. X's