by Lopez, Rob
Josh struggled with his reaction, moving from a frown to a half smile. “No. Yeah. Kind of. To see how you were. Obviously.”
Skye smiled wanly in return, and Josh felt his heart soar.
“Because,” he added, “you know, I’m not leaving either. Because... just not.”
“You’re sweet,” said Skye.
Josh blushed. “You too. I mean, as a person. And it’s good. I... I like that.”
Skye’s smile faded, but her eyes continued to shine. “I like it too,” she said quietly.
“So. Are you okay?”
Skye’s gaze drifted toward the makeshift refugee building. “There’s a few jerks around.”
Josh’s face fell, and he looked toward the building too. “Really?”
“It’s not a big deal,” said Skye. “Just worried about my mom.” Picking up a stick, she poked the ground with it. “They say the radiation’s coming.”
“Uh, yeah.”
“That worry you?”
Josh hadn’t really thought about it. “I don’t know.”
Skye snapped the stick. “Not like we can do anything about it, right? It just happens.”
“I guess.”
“Can’t change anything, really.”
“Guess not.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not really good company today.”
“No, it’s okay,” said Josh hastily. He wanted to wade across the creek and touch her. Take her in his arms. He pictured himself doing so, but he remained rooted to the spot.
“You’d better go,” she said. “Your sister and all.”
“Hmm,” muttered Josh, his mouth suddenly dry.
“Don’t forget your water,” she said.
And she turned away.
Josh walked disconsolately back through the streets, torn up inside. He didn’t know why she wanted him to go. Didn’t understand what was wrong.
He wanted to run back and tell her he’d fallen in love with her. That he couldn’t think of anything else.
Instead, he trudged back to the house, feeling emptier than ever, the pieces still falling.
30
Lauren stopped to consult her map, a road atlas she’d liberated from an abandoned garage. The garage shop had been cleared out of anything edible, but key chains and maps were still in plentiful supply. They’d spent the rest of the day bypassing the DC metropolitan area and darkness was falling, but Lauren wanted to get across the Potomac before they stopped for the night. The nearest crossing was the Chain Bridge, and coming down off the wooded heights, through affluent, winding suburbs, everything seemed quiet. The houses were dark and it was hard to tell which were occupied and which were not. Lauren was tempted to explore a couple, but the last thing she needed was to encounter a scared homeowner with a firearm and a nervous trigger finger. Between her and April, they still had ample food supplies anyway, especially since they were rationing it. It meant they were always hungry, and that made the miles more tiring. It also made tempers a little tetchy, so they’d entered an unspoken agreement to simply avoid talking unless it was absolutely necessary. This was one of those moments.
“Bottom of the hill we turn right. We’ll soon be at the bridge,” murmured Lauren.
April just nodded.
Lauren led the way, sticking close to the trees at the side of the road. In the gloom she could see the river, the large island that ran the length of it, and the black ribbon of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal that ran parallel to it. The hum of crickets filled the air.
Several vehicles lay abandoned on the approach to the bridge, their doors and gas fill caps open. Weary and looking forward to finishing for the night, Lauren didn’t catch the significance of that. There was a strange smell in the air that also failed to ring any alarm bells.
A low whistle snapped her out of her complacency, and she stopped immediately, scanning the wooded embankment on the other side of the road. That’s where she thought the sound came from, but she couldn’t see anything in the twilight under the trees. A hundred yards away lay the parapet of the bridge. A shadow unfolded itself, becoming the silhouette of a man.
A man who’d been waiting.
“It’s okay. It’s safe,” he called.
The hairs on Lauren’s skin prickled. She realized what the smell was.
It was the sweet odor of rotting bodies.
“Turn around,” she whispered harshly to April.
“Why?”
“It’s a trap.”
“It’s okay ladies,” called the man. “We’ll look after you.”
“Run,” hissed Lauren.
As soon as they bolted down the road, the undergrowth on the embankment exploded as someone, the whistler, dashed through the trees to keep pace with them. Lauren pulled the Beretta out, catching the fleeting glimpses of a running shadow. Halting and dropping her suitcase, she brought up the pistol in both hands and fired three shots in quick succession, tracking the shadow, the blasts echoing loudly in the night. There was a thump as something fell. Grabbing the suitcase handle, she raced after April, her heart pumping hard.
They ran for what seemed like miles. When they came to a halt, exhausted, they looked behind. The crickets chirped and nothing else moved on the road.
“What the hell happened?” gasped April.
“I don’t know,” said Lauren. “I thought...”
But she was no longer sure what she thought. There had been no pursuit, and the only person shooting had been her. She started to wonder whether she’d been imagining things. The weariness, the hunger and the darkness had triggered her paranoia. The strange smell was still in the air, and she realized it was probably rotting wood in the canal. Or the dry weather lowering the water level and exposing something.
But the man and his strange comments. That was odd. She was certain she hadn’t hallucinated him, but then she wondered if she had.
And the movement in the trees could have been an animal.
She realized she needed to rest. Wandering the twilight half asleep wasn’t a good idea.
“What do we do now?” said April, spooked.
Lauren didn’t want to approach the bridge again. “I don’t know. Let’s keep going until I think of something.”
The next bridge was in the metropolitan area, and Lauren didn’t want to venture there. She didn’t want to be trapped on this side of the river, either. She wondered whether she was desperate enough to swim. It might at least wake her up. Dwelling on the fate of April and Daniel quashed that idea.
Unexpectedly, they came upon another bridge – a small one next to a gravel parking lot that crossed the canal. Lauren strained her eyes to read the sign in the parking lot: Fletcher’s Cove National History Park. More importantly, she saw the words, 'Boat House’. Leading the way across the bridge and into the trees, she found wooden picnic benches, a locked building and a wooden dock that led out to the cove and the Potomac. The river didn’t look that wide at this point, but the opposite bank reared up in a steep, wooded slope, at the top of which was a road. Taking out her lug wrench, she attacked the padlock on the boat house, straining until she popped the screws out of the wood. Within the dark interior were row boats and canoes.
“Fold down the stroller,” she said to April.
Grabbing at the gunwale of a row boat, she attempted to drag it out. “Jesus, this is heavy,” she gasped, only managing to bring it forward a few inches. April ran back to give her a hand. Between them they managed to lift it and shuffle it in stages toward the dock.
Daniel wandered around the folded stroller as the crickets chirruped and the women grunted and strained. “Mommy?” he said, sounding frightened.
“Not now, baby,” panted April.
“Mommy,” repeated the child plaintively.
Lauren decided she preferred it when the child was silent. Sweating profusely, she staggered into the water by the dock and dropped the boat. Catching her breath, she listened intently for any sign that someone had heard them.
“
Load up the boat,” she whispered, hurrying back to the boat house. She paused, staring into the trees, again listening hard. Her paranoia was tripping and she expected someone, or something, to step out. Seconds passed, but nothing happened. Trying to get a grip of herself, she grabbed a pair of oars and dashed back.
She wasn’t that familiar with boats, and it turned out April wasn’t either. Rocking unsteadily on the water, she lifted the oars onto the row locks. In the confined space, April held onto Daniel, with the stroller, bags and cans piled in the prow. Lauren pushed away from the dock, her heart skipping a beat as the boat lurched dangerously over to one side. Steadying herself with the oars, she dipped the blades into the water and pulled, drawing away from the shore.
As soon as they left the cove, a light current caught them, turning the prow, but Lauren glanced back at the opposite shore, confident they could reach it in a couple of minutes. The knuckling of the row locks was alarmingly loud, and the oars slapped on the water as she struggled with the angle of the blades. Adjusting her grip, she dipped the blades more gently and dragged the oars slower.
The crack of a gunshot was followed by an angry zip, and something plopped in the water near the boat, sending up a splash.
Lauren was stunned for a moment. She didn’t see where the shot came from, and couldn’t see anyone near the dock they’d just left. In the distance she could see the straight, hard line of Chain Bridge in the growing darkness, but it was almost a mile away, and she didn’t think anyone would be able to see them from there.
There was another crack, and something zipped by, close to her head. Yanking at the oars, she heaved with all her strength. The third shot thwacked into the side of the boat, splintering the wood and causing April to yelp.
Lauren rowed like a crazy woman, the oars flailing the water. The narrow river now seemed as wide as a lake, and her back muscles protested as she worked to propel the craft, dreading the fourth shot.
Whoever was shooting had used the first two shots to gauge the range, bracketing the target. The third one was spot on. The fourth would be the killer.
It never came. The boat crunched up against a gravel shore and Lauren leaped out, grabbing April’s hand.
“Come on,” she urged.
Together they ran to the shelter of a rocky outcrop among the trees.
“Stay here,” whispered Lauren hoarsely. “And stay down.” Grabbing her pistol, she scrambled up the slope.
The shooter wasn’t on the bridge. Nor on the north shore by the dock. The angle of impact on the boat confirmed that. The shooter was on the south bank – the same place they were – and shooting from a high position.
Slipping and sliding in the darkness, Lauren punished her legs and lungs in her anxiety to get to the top. Dizzy from her exertions, she reached a low brick wall.
It was the parapet of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, a scenic road with rest stops for the majestic view over the river. Lauren suspected the shooter was at one of the rest stops, and that the reason the fourth shot never came was because he had a limited view up the river. Lauren expected him to be coming down the road now, trying to estimate where they’d landed. Wiping away the sweat that dripped into her eyes, Lauren steadied the pistol on the parapet, waiting to take him out. All thoughts about whether she’d been hallucinating were banished. Someone had indeed been waiting at the bridge for them, and someone was now willing to shoot them. If it wasn’t the same someone, it meant there were more of them out there.
It didn’t really matter who or why.
Lauren waited, her breathing steadying, her eyes adjusting to the gloom. In the distance, an engine revved and died, and she thought she caught the sound of a vehicle driving away, but nothing else happened. She lingered there until the heavy hum of crickets mocked her for wasting her time.
Giving up, she engaged the pistol’s safety and made her slow way back down the slope.
“Jeez, what took you so long?” asked April when she got to the bottom.
“Had a theory that didn’t play out,” said Lauren, sitting on a rock and kneading the small of her back.
“Did you see who it was?”
“No.”
“This is just crazy shit.”
Lauren didn’t disagree. While she’d been gone, April had set up the stroller, and Daniel was asleep in it, gently sighing. “Is there anything that kid doesn’t sleep through?” she said. “Man, I’m so tired I could drop down right here.”
April looked around at the rocks and water lapping nearby. “Somewhere a little more comfortable might be good.”
“I was joking. We need to get out of here. They might return to search this location.”
“What the hell did they want with us?”
Lauren moved her hands to massage her neck. “Well they sure as hell weren’t interested in drugs. Might have been looking to rob us.”
“I think they wanted to do a lot more than that.”
“Maybe. But in the end they just wanted to waste bullets for... nothing. I don’t know what they wanted and I don’t really care. We need to get ourselves – and that stroller – up this slope.”
“I got the bags ready. They gotten wet, though. That last bullet went right through the bottom and started flooding the boat. Any more time on the water and we’d have sunk.”
Lauren looked up. “I forgot to ask. Were you hurt? I heard you call out.”
“Nah, I was fine. I thought you were hit until I saw you haul your ass up the hill.”
“Ah. Well, gotta do it again now, but I think there’s a park on the other side of the highway.”
“You sure you don’t want to wait out the night down here? We’ll be able to hear anything that comes.”
Lauren stood up and stretched her back. “No. One more effort, then we’ll rest. We can do this.”
31
Rick crouched next to the chocked front wheel of the Cessna, listening to the crickets in the darkness. He’d enjoyed the warmth emanating from the engine earlier in the night, but now he was cold. They were somewhere in the Balkans. Kowalski thought they might be in Slovenia, but he’d been dog tired when they landed on the road in the hills, and the landing had been bumpier than his normal efforts. He was sleeping in the trees at the side of the road, and his snoring was loud. Rick let him sleep, splitting the watches between himself and Scott.
Security was a worry. Landing near abandoned cars, siphoning fuel and taking off again wasn’t a problem. Staying on the ground overnight, however, was. The sound of a plane coming in to land had the potential to draw attention from miles around. People were hungry and desperate, and the arrival of an aircraft, after days of seeing nothing else in the skies, promised salvation. It didn’t matter that a light plane couldn’t carry much. Didn’t matter if Rick and Scott insisted that they weren’t in a position to help anyone. And it didn’t help that they couldn’t speak the local language. The Cessna represented the return of civilization, and the chance of escape. They’d chosen an isolated spot in the hills, looking only for an abandoned vehicle, but an hour after they landed, people turned up, either from houses hidden in the vast forests, or simply because they were refugees already on the road. When a small group of men turned up with an old woman in tow, Rick and Scott had been forced to turn them away, attempting to communicate with them at first, and finally aiming their weapons at them until they got the message. It was harsh, and Rick felt sorry for them, but they only had enough food for themselves, and not much of that. They certainly weren’t in a position to ferry someone to a hospital, which is what he thought the men wanted him to do, pointing frequently at the old woman. They left, grumbling among themselves and casting hateful glances back at the foreigners with their plane. Rick worried they might come back in greater numbers. Smashing the windshield of the nearby car, Rick scattered the glass along the road, twenty yards in front of, and behind, the plane. In the darkness, if someone tried to sneak up on them, through the woods or along the road, he’d hear them crun
ch either the undergrowth or the glass. So far, the night had been quiet.
For the first time, Rick gave some thought to his own house. He’d been concentrating so hard on staying alive that he hadn’t seriously contemplated actually walking into his own home. It was a distant fantasy. Now that he had the means to actually get there, he began to wonder.
If things were as bad as he thought they might be, his house probably stood empty. Looters might even have cleared it out. His extensive DVD collection would be scattered across the floor. Sofas would be slashed in the hunt for hidden valuables, closets searched. Lauren’s jewelry would be gone. The watch his father had left him that he’d worn at the wedding would be taken. The kid’s toys... well, nobody would bother with those. Lauren had kept Josh’s collection of toy soldiers in a box in the garage, but that was more for her nostalgia than his. The boy had lost interest in military stuff. Rick hadn’t kept any military mementos himself. He hadn’t retained his Ranger cap badge or anything like that. Had never tried to bring back knives, spent bullets or disassembled AK47s from Iraq, like some of the guys did. He wasn’t interested. Going out on deployment was just another day in the office, and hoarding those things was the equivalent of holding onto paper clips and staples. Rick saw that kind of stuff every day and didn’t really need it hanging around at home. Out in the field, it was junk. Didn’t make sense to try and bring it home.
The house held no attraction for him, really. He led a nomadic existence, and material things ceased to have much value. He’d bought the house the year before they got married, more because it was the done thing than because he wanted it. He let Lauren do most of the choosing. As long as she was there, he didn’t really care. They had sex in every single room after moving in, like dogs marking their territory. The place ceased to have any significance for him after that. They could have moved out a year later and it wouldn’t have bothered him. One house was the same as the next.