Two of the other homes had escaped the inferno, but both had been ransacked since, their owners gone or dead. Devon had almost walked past the second when he noticed a flash of white from what looked like the rear panel of a small truck. It was hidden beneath the wreckage of a collapsed carport set off to one side of the trailer.
Cautiously, he picked his way to the driver's side and brushed off the bits of burned wood. "It's an RV," he said, looking into the cab of an ancient Hymer. It was small—maybe a four-berth—but it might carry eight kids and their coach. "Can you drive?"
Jordan nodded. "I can, but I never drove nothin' like this. Are we gonna start it up?"
"No. Something this old is going to be pretty noisy. I'd want to clear around it, make sure it looks okay and then be ready to get out of here when we do try it." But he was smiling as he said it because maybe, just maybe, this old rust bucket would give them a way of transporting the kids. Where to? Who knew? But perhaps they had options now.
"C'mon," Devon added. "We're out here to find something to eat. Let's do that and then we can think about the RV and what we can use it for."
They saw nothing other than smoking ruins as they came out the other side of the park and emerged onto Butte Street. Devon could see a block of houses to his left, and buildings to the right, but as he looked across the road, he had an uninterrupted view of a scrubby desert landscape that ended in a range of mountains that huddled along the horizon.
Lacey waved him to the right. "The grocery store's this way."
He ran ahead, but turned back, disappointment obvious on his face.
Devon reached him and could see why. Eni's Mart was a smoking ruin. A squat, blackened rectangle with scraps of color between shattered windows. A leafless tree swayed in the breeze, one side blackened where it had roasted in the fire.
"There may be some undamaged food among all the debris," Devon said. "Watch out for glass, though. And keep close."
It was silent in downtown West Wendover. It was a tiny city, though bigger than Hope, but it seemed inconceivable that it had become a ghost town. Lacey had seen attacks happening outside the hut, so some people had survived. Where were they?
Devon pulled a cloth shopping bag out from under the metal frame of a window that had blown outwards and began scanning the wreckage. He soon wished he hadn't. A human hand lay as if clawing at the air, the arm disappearing behind fallen shelving, flakes of black merging with touches of frost. It reminded Devon of that scene in The Terminator—or was it Terminator 2?—where the children are in the playground when the nuclear bomb goes off and all that's left is ashes that are blown on the wind.
He kneeled beside the accidental grave and looked across the wrecked shell of the mart. Lacey was bent over, his head scanning from side to side like a garbage picker from some Third World country. Was this what the human race had been reduced to, just days after the pulse?
The higher you jump, the harder you fall.
"I got somethin'. Package of Weetos. Box is wet, but the inside's fine."
"Cool," Devon said, opening the shopping bag and walking over to where Lacey stood.
"Now, I hope you fellas aren't fixing on a little shop-liftin?"
Dammit! He'd dropped his guard for a few seconds in the search for food and that had been enough. They spun around to see two men emerge from what had once been the stock area out back. Each held a shotgun and one glance told Devon they knew how to use them and wouldn't hesitate. He'd once heard the only thing that would survive a nuclear holocaust would be cockroaches. Well, there stood two walking, talking, gun-toting palmetto bugs and, for all his care, for all his training, he'd allowed the vermin to catch them unawares.
Devon dropped the bag and raised his hands.
"I can see the piece. Now, why don't your young friend there go and—verrrry slowly—fetch it for me." The speaker wore a filthy red baseball cap that might have had an Angry Birds logo on it, or it might have been the Cardinals. His friend wore a leather jacket and sunglasses.
Devon glanced at Lacey, who stood wide-eyed and pale. He was just terrified enough to do something really unwise. "Do as he says, Jordan."
The boy dropped his bat and reached into the inside pocket of Devon's jacket, his hand shaking. Don't try anything stupid. Don't try anything stupid.
Lacey slowly pulled the Glock out, his back to the two men with their shotguns pointed at his back.
"That's it, nice 'n slow."
Jordan Lacey's eyes flicked up at Devon and he tried something stupid.
With surprising speed, he brought the gun around and fired off a shot that went high and wide. Devon shoved Lacey to the ground as a fallen chunk of masonry exploded beside his face. He grabbed the gun from the boy's hand and rolled away, ignoring the sudden prickling heat in his face and the warm blood that speckled his jacket.
Click-clack. Boom.
He could feel the impact in the sole of his boots as he scrambled behind an upturned counter.
Click-clack. Boom. Click-clack. Red Cap was advancing on him while his comrade in crime moved quickly towards where Lacey had hidden himself.
Devon brought up his Glock.
Crack. Crack.
Sunglasses fell with a shriek and Devon swung his arm around to aim at Red Cap.
But he was running. The dragon embroidered on the back of his raggedy denim jacket made for a perfect target, but Devon didn't shoot men who were running away.
Devon struggled to his feet and pulled Jordan upright. "Are you alright?"
"Y … yeah."
"You idiot! You could have gotten us both killed!" Devon grabbed the boy by his collar. He wanted to shake some sense into the little fool, but the sheer terror on Lacey's face cancelled out his own fear and rage. He let go and kneeled beside the moaning form of the man in sunglasses.
He lay on his front, crimson leaking from a neat hole in his shoulder. "You're lucky I'm not a better shot," Devon said. "Choose your friends better next time. You're scum, but you're scum with guts."
Devon got back to his feet as the man squirmed half onto his side. His face was pale and covered in flakes of charcoal. "You ain't gonna leave me here, are ya?"
"I got enough problems without having to look out for a piece of filth like you. Better pray your chicken-shit friend comes back." He grabbed the shivering Lacey and dragged him away.
"Come on," he said as they accelerated away from the wrecked mart and the cursing man. "We better hope that RV starts up, because we need to be a long way away when that scum comes back with more vermin."
Devon wrenched open the cab door and jumped up into the seat. No key in the ignition. He checked in the glove compartment and behind the visors. Nothing. "Damn!"
He jumped out of the RV, ran into the burned-out mobile home and began kicking over piles of black wood that might once have been drawers for keys. Nothing. "Come on! Give me a break," he muttered. They only had minutes before the survivors of Wendover would find them. The gunshots would have been audible for miles around in this silent town and Sunglasses would tell whoever found him what direction they'd gone in.
With a final curse, Devon decided there was nothing else for it. They'd have to draw their pursuers away from the sports hut where the children hid and hope beyond hope that the kids weren't discovered.
He was just emerging from the burned-out ruin when the RV roared to life.
It reversed out of the remnants of the carport, scattering fragments of scorched boards in every direction, and came to a halt outside the door of the mobile home.
"Quick. You'd better drive!" Lacey called as he slid across into the passenger seat.
Without another word, Devon climbed up, put the manual shift into first gear and stabbed down on the gas, steering the cumbersome dinosaur around in the tightest circle it could manage.
He glanced down at the ignition. It had been broken apart.
"I hot-wired it," Jordan Lacey called over the roar of the old engine. "Maybe I haven't always been
the best of kids. Guess that's why I ended up out here."
Devon filed away the inevitable questions until a better time and forced the RV as fast as it could manage through the maze of roads until they emerged on the other side of the sports field and powered toward the hut where the children hid.
The RV squealed to a halt beside his CRV and he jumped out. He was at the bottom of the steps when Jessie appeared at the top.
"We got to get out of here, right now!"
She nodded. "We're ready. Heard the shots. Figured you'd done something idiotic, and we'd soon have trouble." Despite her words, he could see the relief on her face, and he stepped back as the children filed out quickly.
"You drive the CRV," he said to Jessie as the kids climbed aboard the RV with many little cheers when they spotted Jordan in the passenger's seat.
"Where are we heading? East?"
"No, south. These kids need hope. And Hope needs them."
9: Supplies
Paul Hickman was in the office of Mayor Gil Summers when Mrs. Vandyke showed herself in.
"Gil, you gotta help me!"
Summers hauled himself to his feet—how long had it been since he'd slept? Hickman wondered—then he took the woman by the arm and guided her into a chair. "Now then, Dorothy. What's this all about? I'm very busy."
And wasn't that the truth. Trying to get the citizens of Hope to do anything was like herding weasels at the best of times, but the old man's efforts to bring everyone together had been singularly unsuccessful. He was making one huge mistake, in Hick's opinion. He was trying to govern by consensus when what was actually needed was a single strong hand. Hick's strong hand. Hickman loved only one thing besides himself—his daughter Sam—and he was going to make sure Hope survived for when she made it home. He wasn't about to let some bumbling former insurance salesman like Gil Summers bring ruin on them all.
The old woman was blathering. "It's Rudi. Her insulin's just about run out and Donnie at the drug store says he got broken into last night and it's all gone."
Summers looked around at Hickman, who was hovering beside the mayor's empty chair as if about to jump into it. "Shouldn't you be investigating the theft, Paul? In your role as temporary sheriff?"
Temporary sheriff? Who did he think he was? And the silly old fool—or wily old fox, take your pick—had insisted that Rusty Kaminski be his second-in-command. That redneck looked a whole lot more stupid than he was and he had no liking for Hickman. Still, he'd be out of a job as soon as Hickman was running the town.
"I have my best man on it, Mr. Mayor," Hickman said. Yeah, my best man. Ned Birkett. Crooked as a three-dollar bill. "I'm sure we'll have tracked down the lowlife who's done this and brought them to justice soon." Well, it wasn't as if there was any mystery about where the drugs had gone. They were in Hickman's garage. He figured medicine would be currency in the days to come, and it looked as though he might be able to cash in sooner rather than later—though perhaps in exchange for political capital rather than anything more concrete.
"How much insulin does Rudi have left?" Summers was asking the silly old woman. Dorothy Vandyke had only one purpose in life—to keep perpetual wallflower Rudi in doughnuts and the insulin she used to counteract their effect.
"Well, I guess she could make it last a couple more days."
Lucky the bakery's shut down too—that'll help, Hickman thought, careful that the disdain he felt for her wasn't reflected in his expression.
Summers patted her on the arm. "Well, we can't waste any time. Nor can we rely on the stolen drugs turning up again. We need to take action now."
This surprised Hickman out of his thoughts. "What did you have in mind, Mr. Mayor?"
"Firstly, I'm going to start a community drug pool. I'll ask everyone to donate their medicines so they can be handed out to those who need it most."
Hickman relaxed. Good luck with that, you silly fool.
"And I'm also going to put together a foraging party."
What?
"They'll begin locally, checking for anything surplus that can be gathered together. Then I'll send them farther out to scavenge what they can from wherever they can find it."
Hickman shook his head. "But Mr. Mayor, that could take days. Ezra's a blow-out and who's to say the same isn't true everywhere?"
"We need to find out, Paul. And there's the Walmart distribution center between here and Ezra. Maybe we can salvage something from there."
Paul Hickman felt as though he was losing control of a situation that, just moments before, had been going perfectly according to plan. "Well, I reckon I can get some boys together, maybe swear in a few more deputies and go take a look."
"No need; Martha's going. She suggested it yesterday."
Of course she did. Interfering old…
"Now then, Dorothy," Summers was saying to the old woman. "You just head on back to Rudi and I'll make sure you're the first to know when there's any news."
He helped her up and guided her to the door before letting out a deep breath. "It'd be mighty handy if you could recover those stolen drugs, Paul. Food, water, power and medicine—those are the four priorities, and we're not doing great on any of them. I've called a town meeting in the school hall for tomorrow night and if I don't have some definite news, we're going to lose control."
Hickman assembled a smile, gave a nod and picked up his sheriff's hat (just a Stetson he had lying around, but you had to play the part). "Sure, Mr. Mayor. I'll get right back to it."
Food, water, power, drugs. Yeah, we aren't doing great. Paul Hickman scowled as he walked out of the community center and strode toward main street. He'd miscalculated; overreached himself. Taking the drugs and then producing them again later was supposed to help get the Hopers on his side for when he made his move, but all it had done was give Martha Bowie a chance to interfere.
Time to go back and lick his wounds. Time to come up with another plan.
Two hours later and he was riding shotgun in a truck heading north on 93. He was going to get one over on Martha Bowie by setting off before she could get ready. Ned Birkett was driving, and between them sat his dog, Buster, who was enjoying the cold wind from the broken air vent.
Hickman glanced in the side mirror to see the pickup tailing them. Brain Sullivan—his drunken pa had misspelled the name when he'd filled out the birth certificate—was driving. With his wide face and black glasses, Brain looked like a bank teller who'd been waiting thirty years for a promotion that was never going to come. He was as slow as a box turtle and as malicious as a bucket full of weasels. He was also a coward, and so Hickman had made use of him for many years as a delivery man whose fear of Hick could be counted on to outweigh his natural greed.
Marlin Cook sat next to Sullivan. Thirty years younger and twenty times a better man than Brain, Hickman saw Cook as something of a protege. He was one of those folks who could turn his hand to just about anything he had a mind to. And he was bright enough to get the job done. Cook had moved into Hope from somewhere Hick couldn't recall after answering an online job ad for Hickman's computer services business. The position was that of an apprentice, and that was true enough. The only complaint he had was that the boy seemed to have an inconvenient conscience. But Hick had begun the job of dismantling it brick by brick. Without that encumbrance the boy could be truly useful.
"How far to go?" Hickman said.
Birkett shrugged. "Maybe five miles or so, I guess."
Paul Hickman sighed. Before the firestorm (as everyone seemed to be calling it), Ned Birkett had been the only cop permanently stationed in Hope when the police department was consolidated in Ezra and so Hick had made it his priority to corrupt him. Birkett hadn't taken much persuasion.
Hickman had come to the conclusion that there were two types of person in the world—those with self-respect and those without it. The first kind could be controlled by finding out what their secret was (and Hickman had yet to meet anyone who was entirely squeaky-clean) and threatening to expos
e it. With the second type—the likes of Brain and Birkett (which kinda sounded like a pair of Victorian grave robbers)—it was all about money. And Paul Hickman had plenty of that. Bitcoin had been kind to him.
"Hold on, it's just over there," Birkett said as they reached the top of a long, slow incline and the landscape revealed itself below.
A pencil-straight white line at right angles to 93 led to a group of buildings squatting in the middle of the flatlands that ended at the feet of the Schmidt range.
"Fire's been here."
Hickman nodded grimly. He hadn't expected the Walmart distribution center to have escaped the fire, but he hoped to find enough supplies surviving in the ruins to be able to serve the good folks of Hope, and his political career.
He raised his shotgun and looked back at the truck behind. Brain looked puzzled, but Marlin took his meaning and lifted his own weapon—a hunting rifle—up to eye level to show Hick he was ready. The convoy swung off 93 and trundled along the smaller road until the distribution center stood in front of them. The chain-link gates had been destroyed and Hickman cursed under his breath. They weren't the first here.
Hickman gasped at the scale of the devastation as they drove into the loading dock area. The blackened remains of four trucks smoked gently in the afternoon sunlight, glassless cabs staring back at the newcomers like one-eyed monsters, their trailers nothing more than a series of upright posts sticking out of a mess of molten plastic. The loading docks themselves looked structurally intact, though Hick could see nothing other than debris in the shadows beyond.
He got out of the lead truck and gestured to the others to follow him.
Crack.
Hickman threw himself behind the truck as a voice called out, "The next one won't miss!"
"He's up in the loading dock," Ned Birkett called from the other side of the pickup.
Marlin Cook was sheltering behind the open passenger door in the truck behind them and Hick tried to communicate telepathically to the boy. Whether the message got through or not, Cook nodded and ducked down.
The Last City (Book 1): Last City Page 9