The Last War Box Set, Vol. 2 [Books 5-7]

by Schow, Ryan

  “You can catch a few more hours, Nick. I got this.”

  He didn’t even look back when he said this. He just seemed to know. I get back in the El Camino’s truck-like bed, crawl in next to Bailey, who barely even stirs she’s that tired, and close my eyes. I don’t wake up until two people are shaking me—Bailey and Corrine—and only then do I somehow manage to crack open my eyes.

  “And here I thought I slept hard,” I hear Bailey saying.

  The drive down E. Ocean and through some of the residential detours we’re still having to take doesn’t get any easier. By midday, however, we manage to get back onto E. Ocean and cross the LA River, taking us to the Pico Avenue exit that will eventually put us on the 710 north.

  Pico Avenue isn’t bad, and we’re able to work our way around a lot of the scattered traffic before heading onto a looping, one hundred and eighty degree overpass dropping us onto the 710. I worry the overpass will be packed, but it’s passable with a nudge here and there, and some shoving with the Mack truck near the entrance to the 710. We make it though. That’s also where we encounter trouble.

  At first blush, taking the 710 looks like a bad decision. Cars, passenger trucks and SUVs are all literally smashed into one another in a massive tangle of metal that’s really packed in there due to concrete barriers on either side of the freeway leading into an underpass. Marcus pulls to a stop and we all get out to survey this formidable barrier.

  “How the hell are we supposed to get past that?” Corrine asks, shielding her eyes from the sun.

  Marcus doesn’t answer the question that’s on all our minds, he just heads into the mess, hopping up onto the trunk of an Audi and walking trunk-to-rooftop-to-hood from car to car until he finally stops. We don’t know what he’s seeing, but he’s the leader of our merry band of survivors, so we just wait. And this is why I feel useless.

  Turning to Corrine, then looking at Amber and Abigail, I say, “I’m glad you guys are with us.”

  “I am, too,” Bailey says. “I’m glad we’re all together.”

  If I can’t lead us through the bowels of hell the way Marcus can, then perhaps I can let the group we have know they’re of value to us. I’m not sure what, if anything, this will do, but I saw what happened when Marcus had my back, and when I had Bailey’s back, and I wonder when the time will come where I need to rely on maybe Amber or Corrine to have my back.

  The point is, you never know. We’re in deeply uncharted waters here and now I’m certain we’re stronger in numbers. That was where Marcus was initially wrong. Then again, he made it right when he brought Amber, Corrine and Abigail into the fold. And maybe I was wrong when I was thinking Marcus and I needed to protect our women when it was another woman, Lucas’s wife, who kept our group and the 2nd Street posse (as Bailey now refers to them) from killing each other. Maybe we’re all going to protect each other from this. Perhaps we all have a role.

  But now that I look at this mess, and now that Marcus is appearing to be stumped, I feel the need to assert myself. Bailey and Amber both have their guns, and Corrine somehow has Marcus’s gigantic knife, so I head into the mess, jumping up on the cars and walking through a massive pile up that’s at least fifteen to twenty cars deep.

  “What a disaster,” I say.

  “You should have stayed with the girls,” Marcus says, not looking at me.

  “They can protect themselves.”

  Now he gives me a hard look that says he’s pissed off at what I’m seeing and I can tell he’s looking to blow off steam.

  “Amber’s never even shot a weapon. Look at the way she’s holding her gun,” he says, and I look back.

  “So?”

  “So you expect a woman who hates guns to do what I do, what you might one day do?”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Shoot someone without hesitation.”

  It seems silly that I didn’t think about this earlier, but he’s right. A weapon doesn’t kill by virtue of being a weapon. The operator is the key to its success or failure. And Corrine? Would she stab someone to death? Maybe, if she felt like she was in the same kind of physical or sexual harm she’d been put in before Marcus found her. What about Bailey? She already said she couldn’t shoot someone. But that was on the boat. That was before she was taken by The Warden. And that was before she realized gangs like the one who took Corrine were real and now operating out in the open, brazenly killing fathers of daughters they wanted to kidnap and rape.

  “This is a miserable, crumbling world,” I hear myself saying. “They’ll get on board quickly.”

  “Yeah, but there first must be a cost,” he says, shading his eyes from the setting sun. Without giving me the chance to reply, he switches subjects. “If we can get enough of these cars out of the way, maybe pull the truck and that rust bucket you’re driving in here, we can move some of these cars back, circling the wagons for the night so to speak.”

  Standing there, looking out over all of it, the foot traffic we saw in the city is all but non-existent. There are a few people, scavenging through some of the cars ahead, but maybe only one or two. We’re not really alone out here, since a few scattered people are still looting what they can from where they can. But it’s slim pickings compared to those people near the restaurants, the hotels and the apartment towers still standing inside the city.

  Looking to the top of the pileup, there are a few cars scorched from drone fire, probably a missile strike based on the exploded, charred look of things. The front four drivers must’ve slammed on the brakes, forcing the drivers behind them to try to pull off the road as they locked up their brakes, thereby funneling them into the concrete construction barriers and wedging everyone else in behind them.

  “How much energy do you have?”

  “Enough,” I say.

  “You should have enough after all that beauty sleep you got last night, Princess.”

  “This how you interact with your friends?” I ask.

  “It is,” he says, looking down on me.

  “Well in that case, you bearded bitch, what do you suggest we do about this mess?”

  “You tell me, Sunshine.”

  Looking around, knowing he’s testing me, feeling like I’m up for it, I say, “We pop the shift locks on these cars in back, move them out of the way, start creating a path.”

  “And?”

  “We have the girls use the hammer to break the windows, clear out the glass and check for contraband.”

  “Why would you use the girls?”

  “Keeps them closest to us, and on the safe side of our vehicles. If I were trying to attack us, I would come from the other side, too. Where your old ass truck and my rust bucket are now parked.”

  “So who defends the truck?”

  “We use Corrine, Amber and Abigail on top of the roof, cycle them as lookouts.”

  Smiling, grinning, he says, “I’d do it the exact same way, except for the fact that anyone you put on the truck is a target for anyone on higher ground. We need a closer, safer place. Like on the bridge above us with a way down. They need cover, but they need to see for miles around, too.”

  We hop off the cars, let the girls know the plan then pull the vehicles forward and get started, all of us doing our respective jobs. Moving the cars is difficult and we hit our water supplies pretty hard, even though we’re still trying to conserve. I tell Marcus we need more water if we’re going to finish and he says, “I’ve got some ideas about that.”

  “Such as?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I was going to say we boil some water from the L.A. River, but that’s probably just blue sewage on its way to a water treatment facility that no longer works.”

  “But?”

  “From the top of the overpass we just came down, I saw some houses across the river. So maybe after we’re done, while there’s still some daylight, we cross over the river using”—and this is where I point to the overpass above us—“whatever road this is and check out the hou
ses.”

  “What about the girls? Should we all go, or should I just go alone?”

  “I’ll go,” I say. Not because I’m feeling brave or have anything to prove to Marcus, it’s because I’m scared and if I keep yielding to fear I’ll never acquire the kind of testicular fortitude necessary to lead and survive in this world.

  “You okay with that?” he asks, and part of me visibly deflates. I was hoping he’d say we could both go, or all of us would go, or better yet, he’d go on his own.

  “Yeah, man. I’m totally fine.”

  “You going to find bottled water?”

  “If I can.”

  “What if you don’t, then what?”

  “I’ll find a container. Something I can carry that’s not too big, but big enough.”

  “Sounds good,” he says.

  “Alright then. I’ll need to get moving if I hope to stay ahead of the dark.”

  “As much as I appreciate your tenacity,” he says, “let’s work the rest of the day out. We have enough water to last us through the next few days, so let’s make the most of this. If we need water, we can hit a few homes. The toilet tanks and the hot water heaters both have treated water we can boil off if we need it. But for now, we don’t.”

  “Alright,” I hear myself saying.

  “I like that you were going to go though with it, though. It lets me know you’re not just a pretty face after all.”

  I don’t know what to say, only that I didn’t seek out Marcus’s approval, but having it is its own reward. On the other hand, it also sucks a little that I’m trying to measure up to a man whom I’ll never truly measure up to. I can lead, and I can talk the talk—thanks to my sales career, i.e., my schooling in the art of bs and salesmanship—but when push comes to shove, in a firefight or even one-on-one, it would be a tough match for me. But apparently fifteen- or twenty-on-one was not a tough match for Marcus according to Corrine.

  We move half the cars by sunset, pull the big rig and the El Camino into the edge of it, then use the rest of what is a magnificent sunset to circle a few of the cars back around us. This is what Marcus had been referring to when he said we needed to “circle the wagons.”

  Before the fall, there had been a lot of roadside construction going on around us. So while Marcus and I were working, Corrine, Amber and Abigail collected wood scraps and a broken rail guard for firewood. We don’t bother making a circle of rocks around it because our fire is in the center of the freeway and there’s no wind, only a warm breeze slipping past us every so often.

  The girls collected a half dozen lighters from the vehicles they broke in to, and plenty of paper (newspaper, briefcases, bills, car registrations and insurance paperwork) by which to get the kindling going. Before long, we have a fire. Marcus warms a couple of cans of green beans, hands out some silverware (a mismatched collection of spoons), then we eat communal style. For dessert, it’s warm apples. Honestly, and I’m keeping my opinion to myself on this one, I’d just about kill for a steak dinner right now.

  “I never thought I’d miss the idea of hot dogs and beans,” Bailey says and we all sort of nod our heads collectively.

  “Don’t get all sour on the idea of beans,” Marcus finally says. “The truck is full of them. Baked bean, green beans, kidney beans, pinto beans.”

  “Do we have a different kind of dessert?” Abigail asks. “Something without bruises?”

  “Do you like pears or mandarins?” he asks her.

  “Mandarins,” she says.

  “I have about ten cans of those, so tonight will be a green beans, apples and mandarins kind of night.”

  “I think my colon just got upset at the thought of that,” Bailey mutters.

  “Better than peaches,” I say. Catching a stray look from her, I say, “Too soon?”

  “If you crack that joke in a hundred years it’ll still be too soon.”

  We sleep that night peacefully, Marcus and I switching shifts a couple of times so he can get two one-hour naps. I hate breaking up my sleep like this—it’s flat out torturous—but I don’t so much as utter a single word about it because I’ll get six hours sleep and Marcus will get two. If he could sleep without waking himself up in a fit after only an hour or so, he might tell me he’d do four hours and I’d do four hours and that would be that. But it wasn’t, so I’m grateful.

  The next day we get the rest of the pileup cleared away, take inventory of our water supplies (we’re better off than we imagined), and head out on what is looking like a much easier commute than we thought.

  Making conversation, Bailey constructs a story of “the event,” and it makes sense.

  “When the drones hit, because this city is not Los Angeles, but not small either, they must’ve kept to the urban areas, giving people a chance to get off the freeway, and off the roads in general. The people caught out here are either commuters or out-of-towners, and fortunately they’re not as many as I feared.”

  So she’d been thinking of this, too. It makes sense. Bailey is a type-A personality, like Marcus, whereas I’m more of a chameleon. I can be type-A or type-B depending on the situation and the company involved. It’s not normal, I’m told, but that’s me: abnormal.

  “If it stays like this up to Sacramento, we might be able to make it in few days rather than a few weeks.”

  “We just needed to get out of the city,” she says, placing her hand on my knee. “I’m really glad I met you, Nick.”

  “I am, too,” I say, glancing over at her. “I feel…lucky. Like maybe we were, I don’t know, destined to meet. You think that’s corny?”

  “Totally.”

  “Yeah, me too. But possible never-the-less.”

  “It’s not really corny,” she says. “I used to write romance novels, remember? I can do corny better than most.”

  “Are there any of your stories based in the apocalypse?”

  “Those are two genres that just won’t blend no matter how hard you try.”

  “Yeah. Agreed. But if you could write that novel…”

  “I wouldn’t even try.”

  “It could open up with the old springs of a rusty El Camino rocking, the sweet, sweet scent of rodent urine—like a honey nectar, but sour—wafting in the air,” I say with a grin.

  “Already my vag is drying out…”

  “Okay, let’s try this. A gorgeous girl—”

  “Gorgeous?” she asks.

  “Don’t interrupt literary genius when it’s unfolding,” I say. Then: “A gorgeous girl, caught between two men, one with a beard and muscles, the other charming but distraught. When sexual tensions arise, and danger mixes with intrigue, will this damsel in distress—”

  “I’m not in distress—”

  Flashing her a look, I say, “Will this damsel who is definitely in distress go for brawn and facial hair or good looks and a quirky sense of humor?”

  “The skinny guy.”

  “I’m not skinny,” I say, “I prefer to think of myself as lean. Can you see Marcus on a skateboard trying to ride a halfpipe?”

  She laughs and says, “No way,” to which I say, “Exactly.”

  “Besides,” she says, running her fingers through my hair, “I already chose you.”

  “But he’s the alpha.”

  “No, Nick, he’s not. He’s security. A damaged soldier. That in itself can be a story, but it’ll only end in heartbreak and most likely abuse.”

  “Don’t tell him that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he said just as much. He likes Amber, but his dad was heavy handed and short on patience. The way Marcus tells it, his old man drove his mother into an early grave, then pretty much told Marcus to piss off forever.”

  “Jesus,” she says.

  “Yeah.”

  “How did we go from romance to drama to dysfunction?”

  “Um, we started talking about Marcus.”

  “And that’s why I chose you. He’s got a better beard”—she says, feeling the heavier additi
on to my face—“but your soul is still intact. You’re still a good person, capable of making me feel loved and safe.”

  “And who says the end of the world can’t get a little mushy?” I add.

  “Only the kind of writer who thinks he’s above the rules of writing,” she says, giving my earlobe a tug.

  Most of the cars hit by drone fire seem to have scared the other cars off the highway before it was too late. This left us with long stretches of at least one lane or a solid shoulder to drive on. We’re making pretty good time, seeing a few people here and there, but really nothing of concern. It’s when I find myself feeling most comfortable that we embark upon the city of Compton. The thing about Compton is, I’m terrified everything bad we used to hear about the city will now be a hundred times worse. It wasn’t. But that didn’t mean we didn’t encounter trouble.

  Of that we most certainly did.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  It happens just after Alondra Blvd. That’s when we see the potential problem. You know how when you see a bunch of pigeons in a residential neighborhood sitting all together on a telephone wire? How they’re packed wing to wing just cooing and crapping on everything below? That’s how it is on the left side of the freeway, which consequently happened to be the area next to the 710 with the closest concentration of homes.

  There must have been forty of them. All just sitting out there on a large, white brick wall on the side of the freeway. All kinds of vines or whatever seem to snake up the sides of it, but on top, there’s no way to not see this army of potential misfits.

  “Give me a pistol,” I tell Bailey, unable to keep the alarm from stealing into my voice.