by Barry Napier
14
Vance drove us through what I assumed was Athens’ downtown district. Much of it looked to be in decent shape, untouched by bombs, the unnamable creatures, riots, and looting. Still, it was very much dead. It looked like a ghost town. A few dented signs along the road bore warnings that led me to believe that this was one of the cities that had been under evacuation at some point during the string of bombings.
Vance headed down a one-way street, going the wrong way, and stopped the dump truck in front of the gate to a small parking garage. I estimated that we were no more than three miles away from where we had left our car at Miller’s Tires.
“Here we are,” Vance said. Without further explanation, he killed the engine and opened his door.
Suddenly, the little swing gate on the back of the dump truck’s cargo bed opened up. I could see Riley standing below us, waiting to help. I hopped down beside him and he assisted me in getting Kendra and the baby down. When we are all on the street, the baby started to fuss. He extended his hands towards me, making desperate little grunting sounds.
Kendra handed him to me and he settled down at once. I held him with my right hand and let him peer over my left shoulder. As I started to reach down for one of our bags—which I assumed Riley had unloaded for us—Vance shook his head.
“No man, you’ve got precious cargo. We’ll take your stuff.”
“Thanks,” Kendra said.
“Yeah, thanks,” I echoed.
It was obvious that Kendra and I were both uneasy about something; maybe it was the fact that neither of us had met a civil human being for quite some time. Kindness was foreign to us now and it was a virtue that apparently took some getting used to again. The baby, however, didn’t seem to mind. When Vince stuck his tongue out at him, the baby gave a wide grin and flapped his little arms.
We followed Vance and Riley into the parking garage. Hesitant and dying daylight still lurked outside, but the gray of everything did nothing in the dark hollows of the parking garage. Once we were several yards away from the dump truck and the blocked entrance to the garage, Riley cut on a flashlight.
The baby made a sighing sound when he saw the light. He squirmed excitedly in my grip and I kissed the top of his fuzzy little head to calm him.
We walked to the far end of the lot. There were a few cars still occupying some of the spaces. They looked out of place somehow, like relics in a museum.
We came to the far right corner of the garage where a red door was marked STAIRS. Vance and Riley led us through this door. As I passed through the doorway, I wished I didn’t have the baby. I’d rather have both hands around the AK. The more we followed these men, the more vulnerable we became. As it were, though, the gun was nothing more than a lagging weight at my back. It then occurred to me that neither Vance nor Riley had ever tried to make us hand over our guns. It was a small thing, but it did make me hold out hope that we had run into some genuinely caring people.
The dark inside the stairway was thick, and the beam of Riley’s flashlight was like a solid physical object. We went down two flights of stairs and came to another door that led into a large room that was divided into sections by old cubicle walls. The room was lit by a flickering floor lamp on the other end of the room. I couldn’t tell for sure if it was another level of the parking deck or some other underground space.
“This is home,” Vance said. “We’ve been here for about three months now. In those three months, you’re the first new people to come along.”
Further off, down a wide hallway to our right, I heard two voices. One was followed by soft male laughter. I looked around the room we stood in and saw that there was a mini fridge in the far corner. There was also a laptop plugged into the wall and, from what I could tell, was actually working. The glow of its screen along the wall was eerie and ghostlike. It was the glow that also revealed some torn carpet. It answered my question of whether or not this was a level of the parking deck or an underground office.
“There’s electricity here?” I asked.
“Sort of,” Vance said. “When we found this place, some of the lights in the parking garage were still working. The electricity comes and goes. It’s been on for as long as two days, and out for as long as four. We still haven’t figured out what’s up. But we’ve been around Athens, checking it out. Everything within an eight block radius of here is the same. The power comes and goes. We figure it’s just some oddity in the grid from when the bombs hit.”
“Where did bombs hit near here?”
“Closest one was just outside of Atlanta,” Riley said. “From what I understand, it was one of the last ones.”
“So...Vance” Kendra said quietly. “You’re National Guard. You know everything that happened right down to the end, don’t you?”
“For the most part. And I’ll tell you whatever you want to know just as soon as we get you folks situated. We’ve got cots you can use for rest and we have food. It’s not great grub but it’s yours if you want it. Fresh water, too.”
Kendra let out a hitching noise that I had heard before. She was crying, but trying to hide it. As usual, she failed miserably. At hearing it, the baby shifted in my arms, looking for his mother. When he found her, his eyes never left her.
“Also,” Riley said, “the others will want to meet you.”
“Well,” Vance said, almost as if he were trying to interrupt. “Almost all of the others will. Crazy Mike is off limits as far as I’m concerned.”
“Crazy Mike?” I asked.
“I’ll explain later. He survived one of the Black Spots. He’s all screwed up now.”
“We’re still not sure about the Black Spots, either,” I said.
“We did see one you mentioned on the way in,” Kendra said, getting her tears under control. “I mean, I guess that’s what it was.”
“We’ll tell you all about those, too,” Vance said. “But first, let’s get you guys as comfortable as we can.”
He led us to the end of the large room and then down a hall where dozens of cardboard boxes were stacked along the entire back wall, nearly to the ceiling. Some of them had been opened. On a few, I saw the familiar logo of Chef Boyardee, a man with whom I had become very well acquainted during my college years. There was a folding table in the middle of the room, the type people usually played cheap hands of poker on.
“Grab a bite to eat,” Vance said. “Riley, can you show them where everything is? I’d like to let the others know our guests have arrived.”
“Sure thing,” Riley answered.
Vance headed back towards the large room and left Riley to show us where the plastic cutlery was located. Kendra and I walked to the boxes, seeing Ravioli, Ramen Noodles, marshmallows, Moon Pies, an assortment of Campbell’s soup, and candy bars.
I watched as Kendra held up a Twix like it was some sort of cosmic talisman. She eyed it with a sad sort of awe and started crying again.
I stepped up behind her and placed my free arm around her. The baby almost instantly started grabbing for her. She took him, still holding the Twix, and we stood huddled together like we were a real family.
15
Despite my early inclinations, I warmed up to Vance pretty quickly. He had seen how desperate we were to have answers and he wasted no time in giving them to us. I was on my second can of Chef Boyardee ravioli when he came into the supply room. Riley was still showing us where everything was located in the small supply room that also, served as their cafeteria. I was doing my best not to seem impressed by their hundreds of cases of drinking water when Vance came through the door.
“Bring what you’re eating into the big room,” Vance said. He smiled at us, apparently enjoying the sight of us getting something of sustenance in us. “I’ll tell you everything I know and then fill you in on what we plan to do.”
Not wanting to seem like I was being a glutton, I finished off my can and tossed it in the trashcan rather than taking it out in front of strangers. I don’t know if I’d eaten too
fast or if my stomach was simply not used to such amounts of food, but I started cramping a bit as soon as I started walking. Kendra was still slowly eating a can of chicken noodle soup, relishing each spoonful. She was letting the baby try some but he didn’t seem to like it. He was enjoying a small mound of dried blueberries Riley had offered us. I had to tear them down to pebble-sized chunks for him, but he still enjoyed them.
We walked back out into the large room with Riley leading us. We found Vance taking a seat at the large table with four other people. All four people at the table were men; I noticed right away that the beefy-looking man sitting in the center stared Kendra up and down without really trying to hide what he was doing.
“Okay, everyone,” Vance announced to the group, as if it were a business meeting. “This is Eric, Kendra, and their baby. As we have all discussed previously, they are welcome to stay here for as long as they want. Any objections?”
Everyone shook their head. The rather large man was still staring at Kendra. I stepped in front of her to block his view and his gaze. His eyes locked with mine for a moment and he then averted his gaze suddenly traveled to the scarred top of the table.
Vance pointed around the table as he made introductions. The first man he pointed to was about my size. His blonde hair was shaggy, curling form the length. Because of this, he looked a bit like a stereotypical surfer dude. “This is Danny Peterson.”
“Hi,” Peterson said, giving a little nod. He took extra care to make sure to give a little exaggerated wave to the baby. The baby stared blankly, placed two of his fingers in his mouth, and began to suck at them.
Vance introduced the other three in the same lukewarm fashion. Rick Greenbriar was an older man, around sixty or so. He had the kind of eyes that made you think he was tired all of the time. Darrel Hayes was a short fellow that wore glasses that were being held together by a piece of electrical tape along the nose. Sitting beside Hayes was Jeremy Watts, the well-built jerk that couldn’t keep his eyes off of Kendra. His eyes had tried to find her behind me again by the time Vance had finished his introductions.
“And then there’s Crazy Mike,” Riley added from behind us. “But he stays to himself. He knows you guys are here. I’m sure he’ll introduce himself soon enough.”
“So where are you headed?” Greenbriar asked us. Even the way he spoke made it sound like he might fall asleep at any minute.
“Virginia,” I answered.
“The Blue Ridge Mountains, I assume?” Vance asked.
“Yeah.” It made me uncomfortable that they seemed to already know what we were up to.
“You were willing to take the chance that those Safe Zones are real?” Hayes asked.
“We have a pretty good idea that they are real,” I said. “We found some convincing information on a man we had to kill when he tried to take over the house we were staying in.”
Sure, it was a bit too much to reveal, but I thought that adding this last bit might give Kendra and I some sort of advantage. Standing there in front of people that had lived together for a while made me feel very vulnerable. Any way I could make us look a bit tougher was a blessing. Especially when it came to a creep like Jeremy Watts.
“What kind of information?” Vance asked.
“A picture of some sort of military gate and a piece of paper with ID information on it.”
“Do you have that with you?”
“Yeah, it’s in one of our bags.”
“So, just to be transparent with you,” Vance said, “we all know that they’re real enough. I saw the one in Florida. There’s also one somewhere in upstate New York. There was one in Kansas, but that one was destroyed by one of the bombs. It apparently wasn’t built strong enough.”
“Were they really killing people near the end?” Kendra asked. “The people that tried to get into the Safe Zones without one of those tickets or whatever—was the military really killing them?”
“Yes,” Vance answered without hesitation. “But it had to be done to keep order.”
I could tell where the conversation was going and I didn’t want to give Kendra the opportunity to go there. Her sister, just like my mother, had been killed by the US government. Not by nukes like so many others, but by gunfire in the face of a potential riot. And anyone that had survived it all, in American anyway, had seen the reckless way the government had handled things. Near the end, the military and even State Police forces had been given permission to shoot anyone that tried to trespass on government property. It was a responsibility they exercised right away, sometimes right in front of news cameras.
“So tell me about these Black Spots,” I said. The topic wasn’t any more cheerful, but at least it steered us away from government talk. “We passed the one you mentioned to us on the CB. What the hell was that?”
“So you saw it, huh?” Greenbriar said.
“Yes,” Kendra replied. “What is it?”
“A loaded question is what that is,” Hayes said nervously.
“Hell,” Watts said. He was, for once, not staring at Kendra. The mention of the Black Spots now had him looking at the floor. “I think they’re like Hell.”
“Sadly, we don’t know enough about them,” Vance said. “There was only a single verified report of one of them before everything came to an end and the military’s communication channels went down. It was somewhere near North Vietnam. What we do know is that whatever they are, they have something to do with the creatures.”
Peterson let out a shaky laugh at his. He had started to nervously tug at the tangled curls in his hair. “Creatures,” he scoffed. “Monsters is what they are.”
“Anyway,” Riley added, “we’ve all been referring to the Black Spots as nests. That’s sort of what we think they are. It’s almost like the mons—the creatures—made nests once they arrived here.”
“That’s right,” Vance agreed. “And they were smart. They waited until after the world was mostly gone to...to make them. We thought we killed all of the creatures. Actually, I still believe we did. My own personal theory is that they did something to begin the creation of their nests when everything was happening—the bombs, the riots, and everything.”
“I guess you guys must have missed out on the nests,” Hayes said. “We think they really started popping up over the last eight months or so. If you were lucky enough to be in a house and not wandering the roads, you were fortunate enough to never see one.”
“Or venture into one,” Greenbriar added.
“People walked into them?” I asked.
“Crazy Mike is crazy for a reason,” Vance said, hitching a thumb towards the hall behind him. “He not only walked into one of the nests, but he saw what was in there and confronted it. Face to face.”
“What was it?” Kendra asked. She was holding the baby very tight now.
Vance shrugged. “His story varies. He says he saw monsters. He says he saw his wife, who died in the first barrage of nukes. He says he saw something that was too big to make sense of. He assumes it was one of the creatures.”
“Was there ever any clear determination of what they are?” I asked. “The creatures, I mean. The monsters.”
“No,” Vance answered. “The scientists and whatever experts work on that type of thing almost all agreed that they came from some other dimension. Like a rip in the fabric of what we know as reality. Some said maybe there was an anomaly with the space-time continuum. Some blame CERN and that Large Hadron Collider thing. No one knows for sure.”
“These nests,” Kendra said, her voice quiet. “Can the creatures get to you if you stay away from them?”
“No, not as far as we know,” Peterson said. “I passed by two of them before Vance found me. Other than being scary as hell, I don’t think the nests can hurt you.”
“Unless you go inside,” Watts added.
“I was walking with a woman for a while, trying to find shelter right there at the end of it all,” Greenbriar said. “We passed by one of the nests just outside of Ohi
o. She swore she heard her daughter in there, even though she knew that her daughter had died in one of those really bad riots. She went running into it and less than a minute later I heard her screaming. And there was something like thunder, like a deep rumbling from the earth.”
“Crazy Mike reported that same thing,” Riley said.
“Jesus,” Kendra said.
I thought about the outskirts of the nest we had seen and did not find it hard to believe that such horrors might exist inside of it.
“For now, that’s all we know,” Vance said. “I have some equipment that I managed to acquire during the last assault on the creatures. Very basic stuff. Video equipment, telecom stuff, bits and pieces of technology similar to what we used to place the tracking device on the car you took. I plan to find out what the nests are exactly.”
“What would be the point?” I asked. “Seems like they’re pretty dangerous.”
The look on his face following my question was stern. His expression made it clear that if he’d had any sort of respect for me, it was now gone. He looked almost irritated when he answered. At the table, Greenbriar and Hayes in particular looked uncomfortable.
“It is dangerous,” Vance said. “But if we’re going to try to live in this world from now on, we need to know what else we’re sharing it with. The nests weren’t here before we set off the first bombs. But afterwards, they were miraculously here. It’s something new, violent, and unknown. So yes, I think it’s best that we know what they are.”
“And what’s in there,” Riley added.
It struck me then just how badly Riley wished to be in Vance’s position. He wanted to be the man in charge—the man with the military background.
“How?” I asked. “Is there a plan or something?” I tried my best to keep the fear and doubt out of my voice. In fact, I had no idea why I couldn’t just shut up. I wanted as much information about these men as I could get before Kendra and I decided to stay with them any longer. But I also sensed this conversation going off the deep end. I felt that if I heard anymore from them—from Vance, in particular—I might know too much about them.