The Last City

by Michael J. Totten

  Roy would run his sword through her next if she didn’t stop, but Parker caught her by the back of her coat and swiped the night vision monocle clean off her head, sending it clattering to the pavement.

  Annie shrieked. Parker seized her upper arms with both hands and forced her onto her knees. “Not now, Annie. We can’t do it now.”

  “You son of a bitch!” Annie screamed.

  “Settle her down and help me!” Roy shouted.

  “With what?” Parker said, straining to keep a thrashing Annie from elbowing him.

  “Get a tourniquet on him!” Roy said. “He might live. If we hurry.”

  Goddammit. Parker let Annie go and kicked her night vision monocle hard enough to send it skidding so far across the pavement that she might never find it in the dark. He half hoped he broke it so that she’d be blind as long as he needed her blind. He left her and made his way to where Roy stood over his doomed friend writhing on the ground.

  Parker ignored what he saw and knew, let his instincts take over, and removed his coat and the T-shirt he wore underneath. Roy held Hughes in place while Parker wrapped his shirt as hard as he could around Hughes’s left biceps and tied off the ends. Hughes gritted his teeth and strained with all his might not to yell out. Parker wished he could place something in his friend’s mouth to bite down on.

  There was a hell of a lot of blood, Hughes’s arm still gushing as if he’d sliced his own forearm with a razorblade in a bathtub. The makeshift tourniquet above the elbow barely slowed down the bleeding.

  “We need to put pressure on the wound,” Roy said. “Hell, we need to cauterize it.”

  Hughes groaned and kicked.

  “How are we supposed to do that?” Parker said.

  “I’ve got a blowtorch in my RV,” Roy said.

  Jesus Christ, Parker thought.

  “I’ll get it,” Annie said.

  Parker turned around. She was right there behind him now and wearing her night vision again.

  “Where is it?” Annie said. As if Roy were no longer her enemy.

  “Cardboard box under the bed,” Roy said.

  Annie headed back toward the vehicles.

  Parker wondered what else she might find in Roy’s creepmobile and if he’d ever used that blowtorch on some of his victims.

  He returned his attention to Hughes. His friend was dying and would almost certainly turn. Far better to put him out of his misery than ramp it up all over again with a blowtorch. He shuddered at the very idea. He wouldn’t be able to do it. He doubted Annie could either. Roy would have to do it. Roy or nobody.

  He heard the RV door open and slam shut.

  “This isn’t going to work,” Parker said.

  “It might,” Roy said.

  The theory was clear enough. Roy had hoped to sever Hughes’s arm before the virus had time to spread to his heart and then throughout the rest of his body. It wouldn’t work, though, because Roy’s sword was smeared with infected blood and virus when he made the cut.

  “Your sword wasn’t sterile,” Parker said.

  “Don’t know if that matters,” Roy said. “Hughes’s blood washed the infected’s away.”

  “Mmm,” Parker said. “Maybe.” He doubted it. “You ever done this before?”

  “No,” Roy said.

  “What made you think of it now?”

  Roy looked up and toward something unseen in the distance. “Dunno. I just did it. The way you catch yourself when you fall.”

  Parker nodded. Hughes would be out of his misery in a few more minutes anyway, and he’d be in heaps of pain anyway, so . . . why not try?

  There was no logical reason why not, but Parker wouldn’t have done it. Such a brutal act wouldn’t have even occurred to him. And he realized, at that moment, that something inside him had changed. Not long ago, he had thought of nothing but murder. It had given him panic attacks. The virus had done terrible things to his mind, but the damage seemed to have finally worn off. Annie had been right all along—Parker wasn’t a monster. He’d be okay. He was already okay. Only a pitiless psychopath like Roy would have sliced off Hughes’s arm without flinching.

  Hughes was fading now and no longer struggling much. His face was contorted in agony, but his breathing was slower. He was losing a lot of blood. More likely than not, the virus was having its way with him.

  Annie returned with the blowtorch.

  “I’ll do it,” Roy said. Annie handed it to him, the war between them forgotten for now.

  Parker couldn’t watch, which was just as well because he shouldn’t. He needed to stand guard, to hold their ground against any other infected in the area that might bear down on their position after all the racket they’d made.

  Roy flicked the blowtorch on, and an explosion of light in Parker’s night vision nearly blinded him in one eye. He removed him monocle and blinked several times as his eyes adjusted.

  Ghostly blue light washed over the parking lot as boiling hot vapor jetted out of the blowtorch’s nozzle. Parker shuddered. He knew Roy was getting to work when the acrid stench of copper wire and barbecued hamburger reached his nose. He braced himself for more screaming from Hughes, but it never came.

  “He’s gone,” Annie said. “Isn’t he?”

  “I don’t rightly know, ma’am,” Roy said.

  Was Hughes about to turn? Had he bled to death? Passed out from blood loss? Nobody had any idea.

  “It’s done,” Roy finally said and shut off the blowtorch. “The bleeding stopped.”

  Darkness returned to the world, and Parker placed the monocle over his eye again. He exhaled hard as yet another gruesome science experiment unfolded before his eyes. Hughes would either turn or he wouldn’t, he’d either get up or he wouldn’t. Parker, Annie, and Roy all instinctively took a few steps back in case the worst was about to happen.

  Parker had an inkling now how his friends must have felt after they’d infected him on the island. That experiment had worked; he had recovered. They knew now that Annie’s immunity could be transferred to somebody who shared her blood type. But they’d never know the results of Roy’s brutal experiment if Hughes bled out and didn’t get up. They’d never know if the amputation stopped the virus or not if he didn’t live long enough to turn or to not turn.

  Parker couldn’t quite believe that his friend was about to die, but he hadn’t really believed Kyle would die either. This wasn’t a movie where the heroes had to survive to the end. Hardly anybody survived in this pitiless world.

  The three of them stood around Hughes in a circle. Parker couldn’t tear his eyes away from Hughes’s mutilated arm, at the frightening pond of congealing blood underneath him, at the shocked and anguished expression still on his face. Even by the Hobbesian standards of the world they lived in now, this was a bad way to go.

  Parker wondered where to bury his friend. In somebody’s yard, he supposed. They couldn’t just leave him out there in the parking lot.

  “How much time should we give him?” Annie said.

  “An hour,” Parker said. Hughes would turn in twenty minutes or less if he was going to turn. A half hour should be enough time, but unless they doubled it, Parker would spend the rest of his life wondering if they had given Hughes enough of a chance.

  In the meantime, they didn’t dare pick him up and load him into the car. Hughes was a big man. If he turned in that car, he’d likely kill all of them.

  “We can leave right now,” Roy said, “if we tie him up.”

  “We’re not tying him up!” Annie insisted.

  “Shh,” Parker said.

  Hughes coughed. Not the wracking cough of the flu or even a cold. It was barely more than throat-clearing.

  Parker watched intently. Was this a death spasm? The first twitch of a diseased resurrection? It didn’t mean Hughes was okay. The infected had lungs. They coughed as much as the healthy did.

  “I’m going to get some pain meds out of the truck,” Annie said and walked off.

  Parker nodded. The
y had a whole miniature pharmacy in the back of the Suburban, including opioids. Parker doubted that any number of pills could soothe a scorched and severed limb, but they wouldn’t make it hurt worse.

  Hughes coughed again and opened his eyes.

  Parker took a knee a safe distance away. It still wasn’t clear what was happening. “Hey,” he said. “Is that still you in there?”

  Hughes grunted, nodded, and winced. He hadn’t turned. Not yet, anyway. For the first time, Parker gave himself permission to hope.

  “Annie’s getting some Oxy out of the truck,” Parker said.

  Hughes closed his eyes and nodded. He couldn’t see anything anyway without night vision.

  Annie hustled back with a small bottle of pills and a large bottle of water.

  “Hey,” she said and smiled at Hughes. “Can you talk?” She kept her distance, still unsure if it was safe to approach.

  Hughes propped himself on his good elbow, disturbing the thickening pool of blood underneath him.

  “Take it easy,” Parker said.

  Hughes managed to sit all the way up with considerable effort. “We have to go,” he managed to say.

  Parker didn’t trust his own sense of time well enough to gauge how much had elapsed since Hughes had been bit. Long enough to trust that he wouldn’t turn?

  “I’m okay,” Hughes said.

  “No,” Annie said, her voice cracking. “You’re not okay.”

  “I’m not going to turn,” Hughes said.

  “How can you tell?” Parker said.

  “I just can,” Hughes said. “I’m not on my way down. I’m on my way up. Give me some of those pills.”

  “Give him one,” Parker said.

  “Give me four,” Hughes said and coughed again.

  “You’ve lost a lot of blood,” Roy said. “Four will probably kill you.”

  Hughes exhaled and nodded. “Two.”

  “One,” Parker said. “That arm is going to scream like a mother no matter how many you take.”

  Hughes didn’t turn. Annie didn’t think he’d die, either. He appeared to stabilize after she and the others let him rest on the pavement for a half hour or so. At least it was long enough to let the painkillers kick in. They gave him a little more time to be sure, then heaved him off the ground and loaded him into the back of the armored car.

  “You got any antibiotics?” Roy said, eyeballing the ghastly wound on what was left of Hughes’s arm. “He’s gonna need ‘em.”

  “We do, actually,” Parker said.

  “I’ll get them,” Annie said and set off again for the portable pharmacy in the back of the Suburban.

  She was going to miss that truck. It had proven itself over thousands of miles. In addition to being comfortable for four people, it had room for all their weapons, gear, and supplies. They wouldn’t need half of that stuff anymore. They had no further use for tents, backpacks, pots and pans, or even sleeping bags. If all went well, they’d only be in the armored car for a couple of hours. And if it went badly, well, they wouldn’t need anything for very much longer. As she’d already told Hughes, Annie wouldn’t let herself starve to death. She’d end it long before it came to that. She’d end it for all of them, starting with Roy.

  She found a bottle of Amoxicillin, returned to the parking lot, placed a pill on Hughes’s tongue, and tilted a bottle of water into his mouth so he could swallow it. Her friend had been reduced to a giant baby bird. He couldn’t protect her anymore. It was her job now to look after him. She ran a hand across his forehead and through his hair. “We’re going to make it,” she told him, though she didn’t quite half believe it. “The doctors will take care of both of us.”

  Hughes smiled at her.

  “You’re a good woman, Annie,” Hughes said and coughed. “Truly, you are.”

  “You ride in front, ma’am,” Roy said. “I’ll ride in back with your friend here.”

  Annie nodded without looking at Roy.

  “I’m sorry for everything,” Roy said.

  No you aren’t, Annie thought.

  “You have every right to despise my guts,” Roy said.

  Annie didn’t trust herself enough to even respond. Like it or not, she had no choice now but to deal with Roy later.

  They loaded all the essentials from the Suburban and the RV into the armored car and set off with Parker behind the wheel, Annie in the passenger seat, and Roy in back with Hughes. They headed out slowly at first while Parker got used to driving a vehicle he wasn’t familiar with. It was a lot heavier than the Suburban, even more so than Annie had expected. The damn thing felt like a tank.

  She realized now that Parker was right, about so many things but especially Roy. She was no longer even annoyed that Roy kept finding ways to make himself useful. She needed him to make himself useful now that they were effectively down a man. At this point, he was merely a tool, both for good and for ill.

  But for Roy, Kyle would still be alive. At the same time, also but for Roy, Hughes would be dead. For the briefest of moments, Annie wondered if he just might be on the road to redemption. But no, that wasn’t possible. She might believe he was coming around if she didn’t know the truth about him, but nothing Roy could ever do in this world would balance what he was already guilty of. No judge or jury would ever let him go free just because he had saved Hughes. He did a good thing, yes, but for his own reasons. He only cared about getting inside the walls so he might later get himself vaccinated.

  Parker, on the other hand, had already walked his road of redemption. She was proud of him. There he was, taking charge, making decisions, and braving danger and risks with aplomb. She could hardly imagine a more decent person. She almost didn’t recognize him, but at the same time she wasn’t surprised. Part of her had always believed in Parker. Not from the very beginning, of course. He was an insufferable ass when she met him. But she’d never seen anyone sorrier than Parker after he recovered from that terrible virus. Even before then, Annie could see that he was struggling to overcome his worst instincts, and look at him now. Parker was more than recovered. He was a brand-new person, better than he had been before.

  It made her wonder if perhaps she was wrong about everyone else left in the world. Not Roy, surely. Roy needed to go. Everyone else, though—what about them? If Parker could be redeemed, others could be as well. She must have believed that instinctively or she wouldn’t have gone to Atlanta.

  She understood something now that Parker and Hughes had seemed to know all along. Only the ruthless could survive in this world, but ruthlessness had to be mastered. It was a constant struggle. Annie had failed to keep her shadow self on a leash back there in the parking lot. The wise ruthless person knows when to fight and when to wait.

  Parker and Hughes weren’t naïve about Roy. On the contrary. He was their collective shadow self, pointed outward and weaponized against the infected.

  Parker was hoping the armored car would be one of the newer models with the newer features—cameras, two-way radios, tiny “gun doors” cut into the sides so that those on the inside could safely shoot at whoever was outside. He didn’t know if armored cars actually had any of the features. All he knew for sure was that this one did not.

  He pulled into the parking lot of a big box home improvement store. He wasn’t sure if they’d find any gas cans in there, but surely they’d find paint to cover the windshield. No one would bother looting paint after the end of the world.

  He barely stopped himself from killing the engine. Parker had no idea how to use lockpicks to turn the engine back on again. Better to leave it running even though the noise attracted violence like a magnet.

  “I’ll go inside,” Roy said. “You two wait here.”

  “You sure?” Parker said, just to be polite.

  “You need to stay at the wheel,” Roy said, “in case more of those things show up. If they do, just drive around the block and come back and get me.”

  Roy hopped out of the back with his sword in one hand and his pisto
l in the other. He kicked in one of the sliding front doors. Parker half expected an alarm to go off.

  “Hughes,” Annie said. “How you doing back there?”

  Hughes grunted. “Unfortunately still alive.”

  “Hey,” Parker said.

  “I am so sorry,” Annie said.

  “Don’t be,” Hughes said weakly.

  “How can I not be?” Annie said.

  “It’s not your fault,” Hughes said.

  “It is, actually,” she said. “If I hadn’t gone after Roy, this wouldn’t have happened. I was wrong and you two were right.”

  “Save it,” Hughes said. “You weren’t entirely wrong.”

  Annie didn’t reply.

  “When you went for Roy,” Hughes said, “I did not try to stop you. I didn’t expect you to lunge at him like that, but—” He coughed a couple of times and groaned in pain. “I felt relieved that what needed to happen was finally happening. I thought you were going to take his head off. I stepped in to protect you, not him.”

  Annie didn’t reply to that either.

  “I need to sleep,” Hughes said.

  “Don’t die on us,” Parker said.

  “I’m not dying,” Hughes said.

  “Don’t turn on us,” Parker said.

  “I’m not turning either,” Hughes said. “Enough time has passed now. I think.”

  Annie and Parker kept quiet so that Hughes could either sleep or die. He’d make it or he wouldn’t. There was nothing else they could do for him now.

  Parker imagined himself in Hughes’s place. Which was only natural, he supposed. It was what everyone did at funerals and at the scenes of car accidents. They imagined themselves lying there in the road or in the coffin. He wondered how he would feel if Roy had saved him. Would he be grateful? Would he feel like he owed Roy his life?

  Hughes drowned in the agony of an exploding star destroying a planet. On a scale of one to ten, he was at twenty. Holding down a conversation was impossible. The pain was so all-consuming that the universe consisted of nothing else. He was amazed that his friends couldn’t feel it.

  He’d lied when he told them he wanted to sleep. He just wanted to suffer in silence as a volcano erupted from what was left of his arm. There was no other option. He had to welcome it, make room for it, embrace it, even lean into it. Go into a pain trance and meditate on it. Struggling just made it worse.