“So, south?”
“South it is.”
They set off down the road, walking along the shoulder by habit even though there was no reason to avoid the center. Thanks to the EMP, there was no risk of traffic.
They had only been traveling a short way when Adam saw something off in the distance. He caught Ella’s arm. “Do you see that?”
“See what?”
“It looks like a building.”
She squinted. “That white thing?”
“I think it’s a warehouse.”
They quickened their pace, both of them eager to make their way to the building. Adam imagined all sorts of supplies stored inside. There could be food there, or water, and it was far enough outside the city that it might not have been plundered. It might be completely undiscovered. This place had the potential to save them.
“Do you think anyone’s here?” he asked Ella as they drew close, veering off the road and through the dirt to make their approach.
She pointed down. “No footprints. I’d say nobody’s been here for a while.”
Adam reached out for the door handle. It turned easily. “And when they left, they didn’t lock up,” he finished.
“Should we go inside?” Ella looked wary. “What if there’s someone in there?”
“If there was, we probably wouldn’t have got this far,” Adam said. “I think we’re safe.” He pulled the door open, allowing light to spill inside, and stepped in.
The warehouse was empty. Not just empty of people, but empty of everything. There were no supplies. No food. No water. Only racks and racks of boxes, enough of which stood empty or askew that Adam felt sure there was nothing to be had.
Adam felt as if he had been plunged into a cold bath, as if he had awoken suddenly from a dream. How could he have thought that he would find a fully stocked warehouse a mile up the beach from where their boat had washed ashore?
This was what Ella was trying to prepare me for, he realized. While I’ve been trying to stay positive for her, she’s been trying to manage our expectations.
He glanced over at her. She didn’t look surprised at all by what she saw. In fact, if anything, she looked happy.
“This is good,” she said. “Don’t you think? This is a safe place for us to sleep for a while.”
“We can’t be sure yet,” Adam said. “We should explore. Make sure we’re alone here.”
“Should we split up?” she asked.
“Are you kidding? Definitely not.”
He led the way to one wall of the warehouse, Ella on his heels. The wall was lined with open boxes, and even from several feet away, it was clear that they were empty. Adam kicked at them as he approached anyway, sending them tumbling off to the side. “What do you suppose was in these?”
“Ramen,” Ella said.
“What makes you think that?”
She held up one of the boxes and pointed to the logo of a ramen manufacturer on the side.
“Oh,” Adam said. “No wonder the place was ransacked.”
“Yeah. You could live on that stuff for months—I know that from experience.” Her mouth quirked up in the barest hint of a smile.
“Look at this.” Adam moved a few boxes out of the way, exposing a bright red graffito. “‘Kill or be killed,’” he read.
“That’s friendly.” Ella looked around. “There’s another one over here, look: ‘Take life or lose it.’”
“What the hell?” Adam murmured.
“I mean, it’s obvious what they mean,” she said.
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “It’s just so dark. Actually writing it down like that.”
It was the kind of thing Adam himself didn’t like to say out loud. He would acknowledge it in the back of his mind, if he had to—that the world had become a place where you had to be prepared to take a life. But that knowledge would never sit easily. If you allowed yourself to get comfortable with the idea of killing another person, he thought, you became like Rhett Birkin. Cold, callous, uncaring. You became someone who could shoot a stranger without knowing anything about him, just because he might pose a risk.
Adam hoped he would never reach that point.
“Well,” Ella said, “It’s a creepy place, for sure, but I don’t think there’s anyone in here.”
Adam nodded. “You’re right. And you’re right that it’s probably a safe place for us to sleep.”
“Thank Christ.” Ella yawned. “I feel like I’m about to drop.”
“Don’t drop just yet. We need to make sure the exits are secure.” He turned to the door. Thankfully, it had a deadbolt. “Can you check the windows?” he asked.
“They don’t open,” Ella said. “They’re just panes of glass.”
“Right. Then I think we’re good.”
Ella went to the pile of boxes and began to break one of them down so that it would lie flat.
“What are you doing?” he asked her.
“Making a mattress. I don’t want to lie on the concrete.”
“Good idea.” He grabbed of box of his own and began to deconstruct it.
When they had each laid out several boxes, they laid down on top of them. Adam took off his jacket and bunched it up under his head to make a pillow. Ella pulled the duffel bag to the head of her pile of boxes and leaned against it.
“What do you suppose this place was?” she asked. “Before it was this?”
“You mean, when it actually served a purpose?” He shrugged. “I guess the ramen manufacturers had a distribution center here.”
“Meaning people worked here.”
“Well, sure,” he said. “Why?”
“Because,” she said, “If they abandoned the place in a hurry—and it does sort of look like that might be what happened—then they might have left something behind. There must be…I don’t know, employee lockers or something. An office. If this was a workplace—”
“I see what you mean.”
“We should examine the place more thoroughly,” Ella said. “We should see if we can find anything worth having.”
“Okay,” Adam agreed. “But we should definitely sleep first, right?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Ella said. “If I don’t get some sleep, I’m going to pass out.”
Adam lay back on his cardboard mattress. “Wake me up if anything happens,” he said. “If you need anything.”
She was already snoring.
Chapter 4
“Adam! Adam, wake up!”
Ella’s voice was a low hiss, but Adam snapped awake instantly. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I heard something…”
A scuffing noise cut her off. Adam rolled over onto his feet. Ella was crouched beside him, looking off between the racks of boxes, pistol clutched by her hip.
“You have a gun?”
“I took it from the Santa Joaquina,” she said.
“You’ve been going on about how you didn’t want to carry a weapon!”
“I don’t want to. That doesn’t mean I’m going to go out into the world unprepared.” She rose up a few inches and crept forward, still hunched low to the ground.
Adam cast about for a weapon of his own and spotted a screwdriver on one of the shelves. It was no pistol, but it would have to do. He wasn’t about to let Ella face whatever was making that noise without any backup. He snatched up the tool and crept forward alongside her.
They rounded a corner and came face-to-face with an interior door.
Ella pointed. “In there,” she mouthed.
Adam nodded. He felt, through his fear, like a fool. They should have taken more time to search the place when they had arrived. They shouldn’t have just assumed they were safe because no one had emerged right away.
He saw Ella carefully release the safety on the gun with her thumb. It was a little shocking to see her like that, armed and ready to shoot. He realized that for all the reluctance she had exhibited so far to engage in violence, she had always been ready to defend herself. He h
ad underestimated her.
I won’t make that mistake again, he thought, watching her creep forward with all the ease and confidence of a military commando. He supposed she must have acquired these skills during her time with the Birkins. He knew she had been afraid of them and of their capacity for violence. That was a fear that could certainly lead a person to sneak around and be prepared to defend herself.
She flattened her body against the wall outside the door. Adam followed her lead, taking up a position on the door’s other side.
Ella leaned over and peeked through the window mounted high on the door. “It’s a kitchen,” she whispered.
He nodded. That made sense. If someone was hiding out here, that was where they were likely to be. “Did you see anyone?”
“No…”
He held up three fingers and raised his eyebrows interrogatively.
She nodded.
He lowered one finger.
She visibly prepared herself, crouching low, bringing her gun up in front of her.
He lowered another finger, reaching out and getting a hand on the doorknob.
Ella nodded.
Adam flung the door inward and let out a yell, raising his screwdriver above his head.
And blinked.
There was no one in the kitchen.
It was a tiny little room. Mid-morning light streamed in through the one window, illuminating the space. There was no one there. “What the hell?” she asked.
A box on the floor moved. Adam jumped.
Then a plaintive meow sounded from behind the box.
“Jesus,” Ella whispered, half wondering, half exasperated. She put the safety back on the gun and stuck it in the waistband of her pants. “Look at that, Adam. It’s a cat.”
He squatted beside the box. “This little guy looks hungry.
The cat was a gray tabby, scrawny and scared-looking, but it allowed Adam to stroke its head.
“I wonder what he’s doing here,” Adam murmured.
“Don’t know,” Ella said. “Maybe the people who worked here were feeding him.”
Adam nudged the box the cat had been after. “There’s something in here.” He lifted it onto the kitchen table and ripped the flaps open. “Hey, it’s cat food. Canned. You were right, people were definitely feeding this cat. Why else would a ramen manufacturer have cat food?”
“Well, he’s hungry,” Ella said. “Let’s give him some.”
Adam pulled out one of the cans and went to the counter. “There must be a can opener in one of these drawers—ah, here!” He opened the can, found a bowl in a cupboard above the sink, and dumped the food into it. He placed it on the floor and the cat ran to eat.
“He must have been some kind of office pet,” Ella said, kneeling to pet him. “I’m guessing he’s a stray, but he kept coming back here because they had food for him.”
“And after the humans ran off or died or…or whatever they did,” Adam theorized, “the cat just kept coming back to a place that had been a regular source of food.”
Ella nodded. “It’s too bad we have to abandon him, too.”
“Yeah,” Adam agreed. A part of him wanted to argue, to say that they could bring the cat with them, but they really didn’t need another mouth to feed. They didn’t need an animal who might make noise and draw attention to them when they were trying to stay away from other people. And besides, cats weren’t like dogs. Saving this one’s life wouldn’t turn it into a friend or an ally.
The cat gulped down the food frantically, and before Adam knew it, the dish was empty. “Should we open another can for him?” he asked. “We might as well let him fill up while we’re here.”
“One more can,” Ella agreed. “But I’m sure he knows how to hunt for himself, too.”
“He’s starving,” Adam said. “Just look at him.”
“He’s still alive,” Ella countered.
She had a point. We’re still alive, too, Adam thought, wondering what he might look like now. Was he as bedraggled and scrawny as that cat? How long had it been since he’d seen his reflection in a mirror?
Ella left the kitchen as Adam opened up the second can of cat food and dumped it into the bowl. The cat looked up at him and gave a little mewl, and Adam scratched it behind its ears.
“Sorry you can’t come with us, buddy,” he said quietly. “In the old world, I would have adopted you. But things are different now. I can’t be that guy anymore, and you can’t be a pet anymore. We both have to learn how to be wild, I guess.”
Ella came back into the kitchen, her duffel bag slung over her shoulder. Moving as if on autopilot, she went to the box of cat food and began transferring the cans to her bag. Adam watched her, bemused.
“You said you didn’t think we should take the cat,” he reminded her. “Did you change your mind?”
“No,” she said.
“So then why—?”
“They’re not for the cat,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Adam asked.
Ella didn’t answer, just continued to pack up the cans of cat food.
And it connected.
“You’re not serious,” Adam said.
“We’re not too good to eat anything that’s food,” Ella said evenly.
“It isn’t food! It’s cat food.”
“Christ, Adam, do you think that matters? Do you think you’re going to care about that if things go south for us, if we run out of beef jerky and granola and we don’t have anything else? There might come a time when you’ll be glad we have this. There might come a time when we don’t have anything else to eat.”
Adam shuddered. She was right, he knew, but it was hard to think about. He looked down at the cat, who was now busily chowing down on its second bowl of food. Would he eventually be hungry enough to do the same?
“Better to have and not need,” he’d told her when she’d asked if it was really important to make sure the boat was secure. The same principle applied here. He was glad she had thought of it, really. He didn’t think he would have.
Ella held out a hand without looking at him. “We should keep the can opener,” she said, and he passed it over. “And why don’t you check those drawers and cabinets too, to see if there’s anything else we might be able to use.”
Most of the drawers were empty. “Silverware?” he asked.
“Sure, throw it in. Can’t hurt.”
“What about this?” He held up a carving knife.
“We’ll find a use for it.”
“I can’t believe I thought you weren’t ready for this,” he marveled, watching her tuck everything away in her duffel bag. “I can’t believe I thought I was the one who would be holding you together.”
“You did hold me together,” she said. “I was panicking out there on the water, in the dark. I was coming unglued. I’m better now that we have actual work to do, but out there…” she shook her head. “The fact that you were so confident, so sure we were going to be okay, was a lifesaver.”
“I guess we’ll have to take turns holding each other up,” he said.
She nodded. “I guess we will.”
He pulled down a pair of cups from the cupboard, and Ella held out a hand for them.
Adam shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “Sit down. Have a drink with me.”
She laughed. “What are you talking about? The tap water can’t possibly be potable, if it’s even functioning at all. We don’t know what the source is.”
“I’m not talking about the tap,” Adam said. “I’m talking about that.” He pointed to the half-full water cooler tucked between the refrigerator and the wall.
Ella laughed. “I didn’t even see it!”
“Good thing there are two of us here, then.” He filled up the glasses and set one on the table before her. “We should drink as much as we can, right? Really try to hydrate while we’ve got the chance.”
She nodded and took a long drink. “So we’re trying to head back to San Francisco. Right? Is that still
the plan?”
“I guess,” Adam said. “I’m not attached to it or anything. It just seems better than wandering aimlessly north. I don’t even know what the next city to the north of us is, do you?”
“No,” she admitted. “But I also don’t know where we are. It’s possible we’re miles away from San Francisco. It’s possible there’s something else between us and the city.”
“I don’t think we could have drifted that far, do you?”
She stood and topped off her water glass. “Let’s go find the office,” she said. “If this really is a distribution warehouse, I bet they’ve got a map.”
The office turned out to be on the opposite corner of the warehouse floor. It was tiny, even smaller than the kitchen, and held only a single desk with empty drawers. But Ella had been right. One entire wall was occupied by a map with highway routes indicated in blue and red and a giant gold star by the side of a road running about fifty miles north of San Francisco.
“This is where we are,” Ella said. “It has to be.”
“Then we were right,” Adam said. “We drifted north, and now if we follow the highway south it’ll take us back to the city. We’re not all that far away. We should be able to cover this ground in a few days.”
“Hmm.”
“If nothing goes wrong, I mean,” Adam said. “Not that I can remember the last time nothing went wrong.”
“Yeah. I very much doubt it’s going to be that easy.”
“Still, we know where we are now. We know we’re on the right track.”
Ella sighed. “I don’t know about this, Adam.”
“But it was your idea, wasn’t it?” he asked. “You were the one who said we would be safer approaching the city from the outside than if we had just landed there. That we could always turn back if something didn’t feel right.”
“Yeah, okay. But now—”
“But now what?”
She shrugged helplessly. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
“Nothing’s changed since the last time we talked about it,” he pointed out.
“I don’t think that’s true though,” she said. “We found this place, didn’t we?”
Escape The Dark (Book 3): Into The Ruins Page 3