Colonize - Volume 1

Chapter One

Morgan woke to the sound of the smoke alarm blaring.

Before she opened her eyes, she reflexively reached over the side of her bed until the tips of her fingers brushed the rough strap of her bug-out bag. Her father insisted she and her sister sleep with the tactical, military-style bag under their pillow, but that made for a stiff neck in the morning. Morgan's concession to sanity was to keep it within arm's reach.

Finally, she opened her eyes. Her bedroom was dark. Not a hint of smoke, and the air around her felt cool.

Both evidence and experience suggested her father was in the hallway, holding a lit candle to the smoke detector.

No danger. Just another drill.

That realization woke Morgan the rest of the way and she remembered what tomorrow was.

Or really, she thought, glancing at her alarm clock which showed 3 a.m. on the dot, what today is.

Scowling, she let the bug-out bag drop from her fingers and pulled her pillow over her head instead.

It didn’t help. The smoke alarm was piercing. Soon, Morgan heard her younger sister’s footsteps thumping down the hall. Emma was only eleven years old and still thought these drills were the start of a fun family weekend camping. She would be excited to miss out on school tomorrow.

Morgan, seventeen years old and trying to keep her grades up, knew better.

The smoke alarm cut off with a final whoop. The batteries had probably been removed.

Up and at ‘em, Morgan! her father called. Society’s collapse waits for no one. You can do your makeup in the car.

Morgan scowled. Her father had caught her applying lipstick once, six months ago, and had gotten it into his head that his little girl was turning into a lady with all the concerns of a stereotypical Hollywood Valley girl.

I have school tomorrow! she yelled back, voice muffled from under the pillow.

There was a pause, then the heavy tread of footsteps as her father made his way down the hall. He opened her bedroom door. Get up. You know this isn't a game.

Irritated, Morgan tossed the pillow aside and sat up. The rectangle of light from the hallway light made her dad look large in silhouette.

I have finals Monday, which means pre-tests today, she said.

The backlight obscured her father's own scowl, but she could picture it clear as day on his face. Jason Hennasey’s day job was fixing whatever broke that had an engine attached. He was good enough at it that he was able to support two girls in a single-parent home. Working under the table helped. However, he pulled long hours, and the grease was practically ingrained into the lines of his face, as was stress from constant worry. The radio says all indications are that the stock market will collapse by close of trading today. You know what will happen, then. There will be a run on the banks, then panic as people realize their money’s gone. We need to get out of town before that happens.

Once, his words would have sent a chill down Morgan’s spine. Now, after years of evacuations for the upcoming collapse, she had become numb. No doubt, at the end of the doom-and-gloom radio program, the on-air personality had asked for a donation to keep fighting the good cause. Her father ate up every word and gave generously.

There was no use pointing this out to him. She’d tried for years. Instead, Morgan straightened up, pushing her reddish-brown hair back and trying to look as adult as possible. If that does happen, I have my car and my bug-out bag. I’ll join up with you guys at the cabin after school.

Absolutely not. The roads will be choked with refugees.

The roads would be choked with weekend holiday goers all heading up the mountain, but her father would only see refugees who knew the truth as well as he did.

When the stock market didn't collapse, her father would act like nothing had happened, or say tragedy had been averted by the skin of their teeth. Later, his favorite radio personality would claim he received enough donations and that God had listened to their prayers. Whatever. This cycle was a well-worn one.

Emma peeked around their father. She was a younger version of Morgan—reddish hair, light brown eyes, and skin that freckled instead of tanned. Her frown, though, was all her father’s. Better to be safe than sorry, she said piously.

Get in the car, Emma. I’ll be there in a minute. Jason gave Emma a tiny shove to get going and the girl obediently ran away. Her tactical bug-out bag had pink tassels on the end.

Jason flipped the light switch and stepped into Morgan’s room. Is this about that college stuff again?

That hit a nerve. Anger boiled up, stiffening her spine. "You mean, how I can't get financial aid because you refuse to give me your tax information? So now I’m going to have to rely on scholarships or loans to get a degree. That stuff again?"

It won’t matter. He sighed. Even if there’s anything left of the world after this… You realize those elite eggheads are trying to plug you into their corporate machine, Morgan. And you’re letting them.

Oh. My. God. She wanted to scream. "The world isn’t going to end tomorrow! Just like it didn't end two months ago when they said North Korea was going to bomb us. Or last year before the election. Nothing ever happens."

Morgan—

If you want to waste your time, that's fine, she snapped. I’m done.

Her father's jaw worked. He was susceptible to screaming conspiracies, but he wasn't an angry man, himself. His tone, though, took on a chill. I don't know what's been going on with you recently, but I know you have more sense than this. Your sister and I will be up in the cabin. I pray you will see reason and join us. If not, well, best of luck to you. He turned away.

See you when you get back! she yelled after him.

He didn't reply.

Morgan was too angry to fall back asleep. She tossed and turned, and by the time she felt tired enough to drift off, she had a whole twenty minutes until the alarm.

She showered and dressed in a fog. The house was eerily quiet without her sister running around and it felt strange to take out her phone and check emails without worrying if her father was watching. Smart phones were forbidden in the house (can’t risk the government tracking them down). She’d had to purchase this one, and a second phone for her sister with her own babysitting money.

Emma was still under their father’s sway, but like most tweens, she wanted a phone for her social life. She had kept it faithfully hidden and hadn’t snitched.

By now she and her father would be at the cabin, which was located fifty miles away in the Allegheny mountains. Normally, Morgan liked it there. She enjoyed hunting and fishing, searching for mushrooms and early-season berries. Best yet, no electronics were allowed, and their father followed his own rules. That meant she didn’t have to listen to anyone screaming fire and brimstone at them from the TV or radio.

Eating cereal with one hand, phone in the other, Morgan swiped to a website that showed the stock market. It had yet to open for trading, but there wasn’t any early worry about a crash.

With a sigh, she closed the browser and texted her sister. Signal was spotty at best in the mountains, but she might be able to receive it.

Sorry about this morning. I’ll be up on Saturday.

There. She had extended an olive branch. Her father would forgive her the moment she showed up. That’s just how their family worked.

Mood brightening, she put her cereal bowl in the sink and went about the rest of her morning routine.

However, she must have been fuzzier than she thought because she was halfway down the road before she realized she had grabbed her bug-out bag instead of her school backpack.

Crap, she muttered, reaching with one hand to search through the bag for her wallet. No luck. It was back home, sitting on her bed.

Luckily her textbooks were secured in her locker and she could borrow whatever else she needed from Ashley, her best friend. But her wallet had a spare five-dollar bill. It looked like she was eating an MRE instead of school lunch today. As if she wasn’t already enough of a weirdo.

The MRE, as usual, tasted like dry toilet paper. The main dish was supposed to be spaghetti with meat sauce, but the food didn’t taste like either.

Morgan chased it down with half her water bottle in one hand, checking her phone for the stock market with the other. Not a hint of a drop. In fact, the DOW was up a few points today. Figured.

Sighing, she set her phone aside and eyed the empty seat in front of her. Ashley was nowhere to be found. They usually shared first period AP Chemistry, but Ashley’s desk had been empty.

Looking around one last time in vain for her friend, Morgan texted. Where are you?

Ashley, as usual, was surgically attached to her phone. Her reply was instant.

I’m sick. (Of school.) Lol.

Morgan frowned. Her fingers started typing before she thought better of it.

Are you kidding? This is the last day of prep we have before finals.

This time there wasn’t an immediate answer. Ashley’s indicator said she was typing a few times, but then stopped. Finally, her reply came.

You worry too much.

Reading it in her friend’s flippant tone, Morgan felt a small seed of doubt take root. First her father, and now Ashley was on her case. Yes, she practiced and re-practiced for every test, but that was why she usually aced them. Her notebooks were meticulously organized and color coded for every subject, and if she had the time she read every English book twice just in case she’d missed something the first time.

But… what if something did happen today? What if her father was right and it was the day when society as they knew it collapsed? Morgan would be stuck at school preparing for tests she already knew the answers to, and for what? She couldn’t afford college without sinking neck-deep in student loans. Sure, she could win some scholarships, but she wasn’t an athlete. There would be no free ride.

The enormity of the future swum up in front of her, a black hole of uncertainties. Sometimes, it felt like it would swallow her whole.

Whatever, she typed back to Ashley. Yup. She was burning all the bridges today.

That done, Morgan did what always made her feel better when life became overwhelming: She sought out a bit of organization and control in the chaos.

Opening up her pocket spreadsheet program, she scrolled through columns of numbers she’d spent hours curating. Over the last few months, she had created a budgeting plan complete with formulas for an estimated cost of living over most of the major cities in the US.

Her best bet was to go to a community college for the next couple years, then transfer somewhere else. But that didn’t mean she had to stay local. Out-of-state tuition was more pricey, but that was an expense she could live with. Especially if it got her away from her father.

California. What would she need to be able to live in San Francisco?

Opening Craigslist, she scrolled through a few of the housing ads and saw with a sinking feeling that, no, there was no way she could live there. Not even in an apartment crammed with other roommates.

If she sold a kidney, maybe…

What are you looking at?

Morgan glanced up at the male voice. As usual, her heart skipped a beat.

Lucas Dominguez had peeled off from his group of jock friends and stood nearby. She hadn’t noticed him approach.

The familiar mix of loss, attraction, betrayal, and something warm twisted in her chest. Morgan locked it away with the ease of practice and shrugged. Not your chemistry homework.

Lucas rolled his eyes and sat down in the seat Ashley usually took, bones so loose it was like he was flopping on a beanbag chair instead of a picnic table. Are you ever going to let that go?

Nope. The day she figured out Lucas had been using her to do his homework had been when she realized her friend from childhood was gone, replaced by a jock dude-bro.

She hadn’t spoken to him for nearly an entire semester afterward, but somehow he had weaseled his way back into her good graces. She’d let him, because despite everything, she’d had had a crush on him since sixth grade.

Puberty had been kind to Lucas. He had shot up a few inches the moment they set foot in high school, and never stopped. His dark hair swept away from his face, his mixed Asian, Latino heritage giving him unfairly beautiful dark eyes and tanned features. He was an all-star player, currently in varsity football and would probably be a baseball pitcher come spring.

Lucas was also totally unimpressed with her acid tone. Craning his neck over, he peered unashamedly at her phone. I didn’t know you were in programming class.

It’s a spreadsheet for budgeting.

He squinted at her, clearly half afraid to ask. Is it an end of the world thing, or…?

She half-snorted, rolling her eyes. Lucas knew what her father was like—he had even gone up to the cabin with her a few times when they were in grade school. That was before Lucas’s parents wised up and realized Morgan’s father had a screw or two loose.

One saving grace was that Lucas had never let slip about her bizarro home life to his jock buddies. Ashley had, once or twice, but since they were far down on the high school totem pole, no one paid attention.

No, Morgan said. It’s a ‘what the heck am I going to do after high school’ thing.

His squint deepened. I thought you’d at least go to state college. Aren’t you in honors everything?

Dad would have to submit his tax information for federal grants. That… isn’t going to happen.

Oh.

Lucas could be a bonehead, especially when he was hanging out with his football buddies, but he never needed things explained to him. Plus, his mother was highly traditional, so he knew about problem parents. Well, you can always do what I’m going to do. Join the Army. They’ll pay for your college after four years.

She started to smile, then stopped, realizing he wasn’t joking. Military? Really?

He shrugged. Thinking about it.

My dad would freak out.

He smiled, showing white, even teeth that flashed against his tanned skin. Who cares? You’ll be an adult next year. Cut the apron strings.

Oh, please. Who was it who was crying when you got a flat on your bicycle and would have been late for curfew—

She would have gone on, but he covered her