The Last City

by Michael J. Totten

  “Found the night vision,” Parker said from the back of the truck. “We should all probably wear these.”

  Hughes closed his eyes and nodded. He couldn’t drive in the dark otherwise, and everyone would need to see if they ran into trouble.

  Parker climbed into the passenger seat with the box of futuristic monocles in his hands. An hour from now, he and his friends would look like cyborg cyclopses.

  “Forgetting something?” Hughes said.

  “Right,” Parker said. He pulled one of the monocles out of the box and took it to Roy.

  “Annie,” Hughes said while Parker showed Roy how to use the device, “do everybody a favor, would you?”

  Annie didn’t reply. She had to know what Hughes was going to say.

  “Quiet down until we’re on the other side of the wall.”

  She sat sullen and silent in the back seat until Parker returned. “Sorry, guys,” she said. “It takes everything I have right now not to set him on fire.”

  “Like you said,” Parker said. “He’ll get what’s coming to him.”

  “Let’s just get this over with,” Annie said.

  Hughes watched as Roy fiddled with the night vision monocle before placing it onto his face. “Don’t turn it on yet!” he shouted. “With this much light in the sky, it’ll blind you.”

  Roy nodded, rolled up his window, and put his vehicle into reverse. Hughes took one of the monocles out of the box, fastened it to his head, and rested the eyepiece on his forehead so he could see with both eyes as long as he could. Then he put the Suburban into reverse and backed up onto the highway.

  “Don’t let that bastard get into your head, Annie,” Parker said. “Everything he just said is bullshit.”

  “He’s a monster,” Annie said, “but he isn’t wrong about all of it.”

  “Yes, he is,” Parker said. “About all of it.”

  “Going to Atlanta does make us feel better,” she said. “Doesn’t it? That’s the real reason we’re doing this. It makes us feel virtuous. And who are we kidding? The old world was a lot more pleasant to live in than this one.”

  Parker shook his head. “You have got to get him out of your head. He doesn’t even pretend to care about other people. He’s a goddamn psychopath.”

  “I get that,” Annie said.

  “Far as he’s concerned, the rest of us are bugs under glass. You think he feels good if he helps other people?”

  Annie didn’t reply.

  “That’s not a rhetorical question,” Parker said. “I’m actually asking you. Do you think he feels anything if he helps other people?”

  Annie let him wait for a moment before answering no.

  “But you do,” Parker said.

  “Of course,” Annie said.

  “That’s why he’s wrong, Annie,” Parker said. “Roy’s missing screws. Sure, we help other people because it makes us feel good. But it makes us feel good because we care about people.”

  Hughes followed Roy down the darkening highway, deeper into the forest, until every sign of human civilization finally fell away.

  “Parker’s right, Annie,” Hughes said and moved the night vision monocle from his forehead to his left eye. “Don’t ever forget who you are.”

  15

  The night vision monocle was nothing at all like the military-grade goggles Joseph Steele’s crew had used in Wyoming. Hughes hated the heavy, bulky thing. He had no peripheral vision, couldn’t see anything at all that was not right in front of him. Even straight ahead, he perceived only the faint contours of a road through a forest rendered in a grainy, dark green on a background of black. Everything else, the woods especially, was shrouded in darkness. Nothing looked or seemed real. Phantasmagoric shadows moved along the thin green surface between the visible world and the hidden one beyond. And since he was using only one eye, he had no depth perception, as if he were watching it all on a flat screen. He didn’t dare drive faster than twenty miles an hour. At least he could trust that no one would come around a corner and blind him with headlights.

  “How you holding up?” Parker said.

  “Exhausted,” Hughes said. “This is exhausting.”

  “You want a break?” Annie said. “We’ll be there in two hours, but the sun won’t come up for ten.”

  Hughes shook his head. “Let’s just get there.”

  “I can drive,” Parker said.

  “Takes some getting used to,” Hughes said. “And I’m used to it now.”

  “You’re also exhausted,” Parker said. “Damn shame if we made it all this way just to get killed on the road.”

  Hughes checked the speedometer. He’d inched up the speed, without even realizing it, to twenty-five miles an hour. “I’m driving like we’re in a school zone. We’re not gonna die.”

  “Okay, man,” Parker said. “But if you feel like you’re falling asleep—”

  “I’m fine!”

  Hughes regretted snapping, but he didn’t apologize. He had to keep his eyes and mind on the road.

  He powered down the window and rested his elbow on the top of the door, half in and half out of the truck. It helped. Gave him a tactile connection to the world around him and made it all seem more real. And the temperature surprised him. Outside felt like midspring in Seattle, no cooler than the low sixties.

  “Surprisingly warm,” Parker said.

  “Sometimes it’s cold down here in the winter,” Annie said, “but this is hardly out of the ordinary.”

  Which meant few, if any, of the infected in the Atlanta area would have frozen to death.

  “Okay,” Parker said, “so we know where the gate is, more or less. What do we do when we get there?”

  “We need a bullhorn,” Hughes said.

  “Where are we supposed to get a bullhorn?” Annie said.

  “No idea,” Parker said.

  “Who uses bullhorns, anyway?” Hughes said. “Cops? How about a police station?”

  “Okay,” Parker said. “Then what?”

  “Wait for them to open the gate,” Hughes said.

  “And if they don’t?” Parker said.

  “We’ve already been over this,” Annie said.

  “We’ll figure it out,” Hughes said. “Can’t make any more of a plan until we see what we’re dealing with.” He took the radio out of his lap and handed it to Parker. “Maybe check in with Roy. See how he’s doing.”

  “I’m not driving his RV if he’s tired,” Parker said.

  “Course not,” Hughes said.

  Parker fiddled with the radio for a moment, then pressed the talk button. Hughes heard a squawk sound. “Roy, it’s Parker. How you holding up? Over.” The radio squawked again.

  “All good,” Roy said. His voice sounded scratchy. “You?”

  “Good on our end,” Parker said. “We’re thinking of hitting a police station on the way down. Pick up a bullhorn so we can talk to Atlanta when we reach the wall. Over.”

  “Roger that,” Roy said. “I’ll keep my eyes out.”

  The forest finally thinned, and the road passed through what was once a lightly populated area on the outskirts of a place Hughes had never heard of named Dahlonega.

  “Careful here,” Annie said. “This isn’t a wide spot on the road.”

  “How big is it?” Hughes said.

  “I’m not sure,” Annie said, “but the University of North Georgia is here.”

  “Talk to Roy,” Hughes said.

  Parker reached out on the radio. “Hey, it’s Parker. Over.”

  “We’re good here,” Roy said. “Town’s abandoned.”

  “You sure?” Parker said. “Over.”

  “It was evacuated,” Roy said.

  That seemed about right, Hughes thought. There was no traffic jam coming or going. The road was clear. And they were in the town proper now, no longer on the outskirts, with a Walmart Supercenter on the left and, just past it, a chicken franchise on the right. Hughes saw no signs of any kind of disturbance, now or in the past. No
wrecked cars, no bodies in the street, no broken windows, no nothing. The town was empty but intact.

  “Ask him where everyone went,” Hughes said.

  “Where’d everyone go?” Parker said. “Over.”

  “Told you,” Roy said. “Florida. Mass exodus to the Caribbean.”

  “Then why isn’t Atlanta empty?” Parker said. “You said it was overrun. Over.”

  “Six million people in Atlanta,” Roy said.

  Hughes swallowed hard and imagined a mega-horde of six million infected.

  “Not everybody left,” Roy said. “Some thought they could ride it out.”

  Which logically meant, Hughes thought, that some people in Dahlonega must have stayed behind to ride it out too.

  “Police station ahead,” Parker said from the passenger seat.

  Hughes saw it now. A medium-sized building on Main just off the highway with a few cruisers out front. Not the municipal cops but the Sheriff’s department. Breaking in wouldn’t be any kind of a challenge. No telling if there was a bullhorn inside, though.

  “Pulling into the station,” Roy said and slowed his RV to a stop in the parking lot in front of the door.

  Hughes pulled up behind him and killed the engine. “Sit tight a minute,” he said and took the monocle off his head.

  The world went black, and he felt a bit dizzy. His right eye had adjusted to the darkness long ago, but the pupil in his left eye was still dilated from the night vision, creating a splotchy visual field that seemed to tilt to the left. It made no sense, but he’d swear he could breathe better now even though he couldn’t see.

  Nobody moved or said anything. They just sat there a minute with the windows rolled down and listened.

  Hughes heard nothing. No vehicles, no footsteps, no rustling, no crickets, no wind, no nothing. This small Georgia city couldn’t be quieter. He wasn’t sure when he’d last hear silence so absolute. There was usually something—a little breeze if nothing else—but here there was nothing at all.

  He considered swapping the Suburban for a police car, thinking that Atlanta might be more likely to open up if they arrived in one of those, but whoever manned that gate would have to know there were no more cops patrolling anywhere in America. There weren’t even cops in Lander, Wyoming. A police car’s engine would no doubt be better than the Suburban’s, and police cruisers had push grill guards mounted on front. There wouldn’t be enough room in the back, though. Not in a sedan. And Hughes didn’t see any police trucks in the lot.

  “I don’t see or hear anything,” Parker said. Neither did Hughes. “I think we’re good.”

  “You and Annie stay here,” Hughes said and got out.

  Parker removed the night vision monocle strapped to his forehead and held it up to his eye with his hand. Using it like a telescope felt better. He hadn’t noticed until now, but his neck muscles had to strain slightly to hold his head up with the added weight.

  He watched Hughes move toward the police station with Roy, a crowbar in one hand and a pistol in the other. “I’ll keep watch on the right,” he said to Annie. “You keep watch on the left.”

  “Yes, sir,” Annie said.

  “It’s not an order, Annie,” Parker said. “Just making sure we’re covering everything.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  Parker wasn’t trying to be bossy. He was taking the harder job. He couldn’t see shit in his sector. Just the road curving around to the right through some trees. If anyone was lurking back there, he wouldn’t see them unless they moved, and he might not see them even then. He wished he had thermal vision. Not even a squirrel would be able to hide in the trees if he had thermal vision.

  Annie’s sector was more visible and easier to keep tabs on. Across the street on her side was a gigantic empty parking lot in front of an L-shaped strip mall housing a furniture shop, a Fresh N’ Frugal grocery store, a fitness place, and a Chinese buffet restaurant. God, what Parker would give for some King Pao shrimp and sticky rice with a side of pot stickers and a fortune cookie chaser.

  Hughes popped open the station door with the crowbar, the sound as loud as a gunshot. Parker scrutinized the trees off to the right, listened hard . . . and heard no reaction. No movement of any kind. They seemed to be alone.

  “There’s nobody here,” Annie whispered.

  “I don’t see or hear anything either,” Parker said quietly.

  But then, maybe he did. Something moved at the edge of the trees. He had no idea what it was. It was just a flicker of green light across a black canvass. Perhaps a branch had moved in the wind, but there was no wind. He saw it again, closer to the truck this time.

  The little city they’d stopped in might not be empty after all. He didn’t want to say anything, though, until he was sure.

  “You seeing anything?” Parker said.

  “Still nothing,” Annie said.

  Parker turned around to check Annie’s sector, made a quick scan of the parking lot, then focused for a moment on the Chinese buffet place to see if his image was stable. The scene was grainy and dim, but he saw no flashes of green that could be mistaken for movement.

  He returned to scanning the trees on his own side. Barely a second later, he thought he saw something again, right there at the edge of the vegetation line.

  Then Hughes and Roy emerged from the station, Hughes with what looked like a bullhorn in his hand. “Found one,” he said and handed it to Annie in back and got in the driver’s seat.

  “Does it use batteries?” Annie said.

  “Yeah,” Hughes said, “but it’s loud, so don’t test it. I turned it on inside and tapped on it. Seems to work.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Parker said, alert and watching the trees again.

  “What’s going on?” Hughes said.

  “Can’t tell,” Parker said. “Just go.”

  Hughes put his keys in his lap instead of the ignition. “You still willing to drive?”

  Parker felt a pinprick of adrenaline. This was not the time to get out of the truck and switch seats. Not if someone or something was out there. But how could anything be watching them? Parker could see because he had night vision. Anyone or anything else out there would be blind. He lowered the monocle away from his eye and saw nothing but the silhouettes of the treetops against a gray background of sky. There weren’t even stars overhead. Just a cloud slab. The night concealed them and made them safe.

  “Fine, I’ll drive,” Parker said. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  “I’ll sit in back and let Annie up front,” Hughes said. “She should navigate. She knows the area. I’ve never even been here before.”

  “Okay,” Parker whispered. “Quietly.” They all got out of the truck and switched places. Parker took the driver’s seat, Annie the passenger seat, and Hughes climbed in the back.

  Parker reattached the monocle to his head so he could use it hands-free, turned the ignition key, and followed Roy back to the road leading south to Atlanta.

  Parker had wanted, in a casual sort of way, to sit behind the wheel since they’d left Iowa, but he wasn’t so sure now that he was actually doing it. Driving in total darkness with night vision in one eye was nobody’s idea of a road trip.

  At least they were out of the forest. Though the road was still lined with trees in most places, the rural highway became a wide and empty four-lane, not quite an Interstate freeway but a major artery feeding traffic down from rural Tennessee into the great southern metropolis.

  “How much farther?” Parker said.

  “Twenty miles maybe,” Annie said.

  Almost an hour then at this speed, Parker thought. “We still don’t have a map.”

  Hughes radioed Roy. “Hey, man, we still need a map, over.”

  “Interchange with 53 coming up,” Roy said through the speaker. “Outlet mall there. Plenty of gas stations and restaurants.”

  They reached the interchange not five minutes later, and Parker followed Roy onto the exit ramp. They pulled into
a Chevron station to get out and stretch and fill up the fuel tanks. An attached mini-mart had been stripped of everything edible, but there were still magazines and maps on the racks near the cash register. Annie snatched one and they piled back into the vehicles and returned to the road.

  A few minutes later, just past the turnoff to Mary Alice Beach Park on the shore of Lake Lanier, Parker saw something he never thought he’d see again in his life: the bright glow of civilization lighting up the underside of the clouds. It was faint but unmistakably there, like a dingy dome of light on the horizon.

  “My God,” Hughes said from the back.

  “So it’s real,” Annie said from the passenger seat. “Atlanta’s still standing.”

  Parker couldn’t believe it. Roy hadn’t told them the power was on. Not in a thousand years would he have expected this. There was a downside, however—and it was a big one.

  “This complicates things,” Annie said.

  “It sure does,” Hughes said.

  “Get Roy on the radio,” Parker said. It was the first time he’d given an order to Hughes instead of the other way around. It’s what happened, he figured, when a man sat behind the wheel of a truck.

  “Roy,” Hughes said amid radio squawks. “We’re seeing city lights. Over.”

  The radio crackled and Roy answered. “Course. Grid’s still up.”

  “How are we supposed to sneak in at night if the place is lit like a stadium?” Hughes said. “Over.”

  “Only downtown and Midtown are lit,” Roy said. “Everything else is out.”

  Parker relaxed a little.

  “Ask him about the CDC,” Annie said.

  “What about the CDC?” Hughes said into the radio. “They have power there? Over.”

  “Dunno,” Roy said. “Maybe it’s lit and maybe it ain’t. My guess is it’s lit. Would have to be if they’re in there.”

  “Alright,” Hughes said. “Let’s take it slow. Over.”

  “Roger that,” Roy said.

  Parker and Roy kept their speed below thirty miles an hour, less than half the posted limit. He did his best to watch the road, but his eyes were drawn to the shining arc on the horizon.