Oddly, Lou was nearly as neat and well-tailored as Plankton was. Her hair was imperfectly hacked nearly to its roots, obviously done with scissors or even a knife. It was a good way to prevent lice, a growing plague that Squid was well aware of. She knows how to survive and she’s willing to do whatever it takes, he’d thought to himself immediately after meeting her. She’s a keeper.
“Show me what you’re talking about,” Squid said to Plankton as he rubbed his tired, grainy eyes. You had to know I wasn't really asleep, right? You think I trust you with that blade you’re carrying? Theirs was still a friendship forged only of convenience and opportunity. He’d stumbled across the same car at the same time that Plankton and Lou had found. Plankton had already chased off its unfortunate occupant before Squid arrived on the scene. That’s when Squid got a good look at the knife. He wondered what Plankton would have done with it had the owner of the car not fled. Times were hard, but Squid didn’t get the impression that Plankton was a killer. Not at all.
What's done is done, though, Squid had told himself as they stood next to the abandoned car. He put his hand on the hood. It was warm. Hot, even. It still ran. All three of them decided to make the best of it. Squid was armed himself, after all, and was confident that he was at least Plankton's equal when it came to physical combat. In fact, Lou seemed a more imposing than Plankton on first impression. He sensed that she had a military background. But he had no fears for his safety with these two, and decided to team up with them.
He knew instinctively that they’d have to act fast, before their newfound treasure was discovered and plundered by others. Life was so hard, and competition so fierce, especially there in the city, that nobody seemed to have a conscience anymore. He often found himself struggling to preserve his own against the harshness that surrounded him.
They quickly came to an unspoken agreement to share the car rather than fight over it. Although he hadn’t revealed it, Squid had a destination in mind. Plankton seemed satisfied with merely getting away from the city, a place that was increasingly dangerous, and Lou didn’t offer any indication that she cared what direction the car traveled in, as long as she was on board. It was a win-win situation for all of them. With Plankton driving skillfully around stragglers and obstacles at high speed, lest they meet the same fate as the car’s previous owner, they managed to slip through the rubble in the streets and out of the city before the sun came up. Now they were encountering the first adversity of their journey.
“There’s a crowd up ahead in the road,” Plankton said as he eased the car to a stop behind a ravaged mid-sized truck in the left lane of a highway littered with the carcasses of vehicles. They were out of the city, but were still navigating through the thick belt of suburbia that was likely teeming with desperate, starving people. There was still danger here. “About a half mile up. Looks like about ten guys.”
“If you can see ten, there’s probably a lot more of them you can’t see,” Squid speculated. It appeared to be mid-morning. Maybe he’d fallen asleep after all. He scratched at his itchy face in frustration and disgust as he thought about how unkempt and filthy he felt. It wasn’t how he was used to carrying himself. The beard was okay until it got so long that he measured it in hand widths. He hated sloppiness and disorder; that was for weak, lazy people. But there was nothing he could do about it. There hadn’t been for a long time now. He wasn’t the man he was a few months ago. Nobody was.
He surveyed his surroundings. They were stopped on a remote stretch of concrete freeway, two lanes in each direction, bordered with light forest that was showing a lot of red and orange. It looked like October, but he wasn’t completely sure. Once he’d stopped counting days, it was impossible to start back up at it again. At the time, it didn’t seem important anyway; he’d been focusing merely on staying alive. The steady drop in temperature was something he’d hardly noticed at the time because there was so much else to deal with. But of course it all made sense. It wasn’t Summer anymore. Warm temperatures were long gone.
“What do you think?” Plankton asked. “Crank it up and blow right around them?”
“Or through ‘em?” suggested Lou.
“They might be armed,” Squid said. “That wouldn’t turn out well if they could block us from passing through. Did they see us coming?”
“I dunno’ how they couldn’t,” Plankton answered. “It sure looks like they did.”
”Yeah, they probably heard the eight-cylinders under the hood of this thing wherever they were hangin’ out, and jumped out of the woods to see what was up,” Squid agreed. “It’s not something you hear so often anymore. So what do you think, Lou?” he asked as he twisted to look behind him. “You’re for plowing through?”
“I changed my mind. I say we low-key it,” she answered quickly, as if she’d been waiting to be asked. “We don’t know how big this hornet’s nest is. Let’s not poke it yet.”
“I’m here for ninety days,” Plankton said. “And it’s ninety degrees.”
Confused, Squid checked Plankton’s face and found the jolly yet eerie expression that he’d seen several times earlier. When Lou tapped him discreetly on the shoulder he looked back and saw her gesturing for him to ignore it, so he did. Now wasn’t the time for questions.
“So what do we do?” Plankton asked, his expression turning serious again.
Squid rubbed his tender leg, still recovering from serious injury, with one hand while he pulled his pistol out with the other. “Normally I wouldn’t back down from this,” he said. “But I’m not in top shape right now. Chances are we’re outnumbered and outgunned. We can only hope they didn’t already see us.” He held his weapon up. “I’ve only got four mags left for this. If they overrun us, the least they’ll do is steal the car. I think we better take cover in the woods and then decide what to do next. We should be able to outmaneuver them before they get on our flank.”
“Do what where?” Plankton asked, his lazy smile again putting Squid at ease and scaring the daylights out of him at the same time.
“We don’t want them sneaking up on us from the side,” Lou translated. “While we’re watching them straight-on.”
Now Squid knew she was military. “Just cut the engine,” he ordered. “We need to stay out of their eyes and ears as long as we can.”
“Yeah,” Plankton agreed. “but maybe I can drive off the road into the trees where they can’t see us.”
“No, leave it here,” Squid countered. “It’ll look like just another wreck, and it’ll be here waiting for us when we’re ready to roll again.”
They’d reached the shoulder of the road on foot when four men popped out of the woods. One carried a long rifle and the another a shotgun. Each of the men looked dirtier and hungrier than the next.
“Hands up!” one of them commanded. Glad that he’d put the pistol back in his pocket, Squid complied immediately, as did his two comrades. They’d search him soon enough and find the pistol, if it came to that. But he was confident that cooperation, until he had a better option, would buy him enough time to get them out of this. Keeping his cool was something he was good at.
“All we want is the keys, man!” said one of the rifle wielders. “Hand ‘em over and you can walk.”
Doubting that it would as painless as that, Squid looked at Plankton and Lou. If he’d been alone, he thought, it would be different. But he had two partners to look out for in addition to himself. Surrendering the keys was a huge price to pay, but was a car they’d had in their possession for no more than a few hours worth their lives? He was surprised these men had bothered to ask for the keys. It’d be easier for them to shoot first and grab them afterwards. “Hand them over,” he told Plankton. “We’ve got no choice.”
“Are you kidding?” Plankton asked. “No way!” Before anybody could respond, he’d turned and bolted toward the trees. The man with the shotgun opened fire. It was almost point-blank; Squid couldn’t imagine how his new friend could have survived it.
The dist
raction gave Squid a split-second to make his move, however, and it was all he needed. Hoping Lou was already taking cover, he yanked the pistol from his pocket and put a round in the head of both armed attackers. They were dead before they hit the ground. The other two tried to flee, but he cut them down just as quickly. There was no place for mercy at the moment. He knew it, and he was sure he didn’t have to explain it to Lou.
He’d won the battle, but it wasn’t enough. Now that gunfire had given away their position, he knew they had to act fast before others came to investigate. Lou had already picked up the shotgun and rifle and was patting their former owners down, probably for ammo. Squid darted into the tree line to check on Plankton, fully expecting to find him on the ground with a load of metal bubbling through his chest. If nothing else, he could end Plankton’s misery quickly rather than let him bleed out. There was no coming back from a shotgun blast at close range.
Much to his surprise, Plankton wasn’t there. Moreover, he wasn’t anywhere that Squid looked. That didn’t add up. He pushed back into the clearing, where Lou was frisking the last of the dead men. When she saw Squid she held up a small cloth bag with a drawstring pulled tight. “Shotgun shells, I’m guessing,” she said.
“I think I’ll take his coat,” Squid said. “It looks warmer than mine. Unless you want it. You see anything else on them we could use?”
“The guns, of course,” she answered. “And Plankton could probably use these boots, if he’s still alive.”
“I can’t find him,” Squid said. “He probably crawled off to die somewhere, but I’d like to know for sure. Plus, he’s got the car keys.” He stared into the woods. “There should have been some blood. I’m gonna’ go look around for him some more. You wanna’ come, or stay here and salvage what you can from these guys?”
“I’ll stay here and see what I can find,” she said. “To the victor goes the spoils. Am I right?”
Squid worked his way back through the woods in the direction of the road, figuring that if Plankton went anywhere, it’d be back to the car. There was simply no sign of him anywhere. As he neared the shoulder of the highway, however, he heard voices. Whoever was out there, it was more than just Plankton, if he was even alive. He hunched down and crept closer until he could see out of the tree line.
There were at least a dozen men, most carrying guns or spears, crawling all over the car. A quick survey told him that none of them were Plankton. Whoever was watching had seen the car after all.
Now what, he asked himself. He wanted to keep the car, but didn’t see how it was possible. This was a large, well-armed group, and obviously they wanted the car, too. Even with the extra weapons they’d just acquired, it simply wasn’t possible to fight them off. The smartest thing they could do would be to melt away into the woods and hope they didn’t pursue again.
Until he heard the roar of the engine he’d wondered if the men had come across Plankton and taken the keys from him, dead or alive. But now he had his answer. The car was no longer theirs anymore, and it was likely that Plankton was gone, too. How this had all come to pass, and so quickly, was a story he hadn’t pieced together yet, but he knew that didn’t matter.
It was quite a comedown, he acknowledged as he watched the men pile into the car before it sped away. Finding automated transportation had been a godsend. He’d spent several months hiding in the basement of a residential building after a serious leg injury suffered when he was trampled during a food riot over the summer. The leg, specifically his tibia, had been broken; he had no doubts about that. He’d thought he might be okay, however, after painfully setting it himself and lashing two broomsticks to his thigh as a splint and prepared to ride out the pain until it healed as best as it could.
It quickly got worse for him when infection set into the accompanying wound. That was something he had no solution for. Before the injury incapacitated him too much he managed to secure small supplies of food, mostly apples and onions from a kitchen on the first floor of the building he’d taken refuge in. In the basement he found a faucet that miraculously delivered a steady drip of water, which he horded in an assortment of tubs and pans scavenged during a return trip to the kitchen.
Knowing he couldn’t survive on one leg if he emerged from his filthy hiding place, he carefully rationed out his food and water and stayed out of sight. Eventually the long, hot days became cooler. The period of time during which sunlight streamed in through the window high on the basement wall decreased from hours to minutes. His hibernation lasted into September, he now guessed. Several months after the world had turned upside down. His leg was slowly healing, and he was committed to staying longer until the water stopped. When that happened, he no longer had a choice. It was time to get out of the basement and move on.
Once he was back on the streets, he found that the situation had deteriorated markedly. Competition for food, water and shelter was intense. On the other hand, there seemed to be fewer people around doing the competing than there had been when he’d gone into hiding. Far fewer. Whatever had gone wrong with the world, it had resulted in a lot of death. Still, there was a lot of fighting to do for a man on his own. The leg, mending but still a tremendous handicap, made this even more difficult, but he was up for the challenge. It beat the alternative.
It was a cold, rainy day in the city when he ventured further from his basement refuge than he ever had before and came across one man threatening another and demanding his car. It was an odd situation. Neither man seemed malicious. It appeared that both were resigned to accepting their own fate based on the new rules of the world. One man had a knife, and the other a car; there was only one possible outcome.
Squid saw opportunity. After the driver had been scared off, he carefully approached the man with the knife with his empty hands on full display. After they warily introduced themselves to each other, Squid got down to business. When asked, the man who’d identified himself as “Plankton” had no idea where he wanted to go in the car. He didn’t even seem sure why he’d taken it.
One thing had led to another, an arrangement was reached. Suddenly this limping survivor who called himself “Squid” and spoke with an accent that Plankton asked about at least five times in the first twenty minutes had a ride out of town and a new lease on life. Or so he thought. Only a few hours later, he found himself stranded in a forest with no food, very few friends, and not much of a clue about where he was or what he was going to do.
Four
There was enough sleet down on Route 206 for Linda and Dex to see tire tracks indicating that the thieves had turned south, so they did the same. Settled in the passenger seat while Linda navigated through the debris in the roadway, Dex finally had a chance to take stock of the situation. The van had a head start, but only by a few minutes. The tracks in the sleet was all they had to go on, and it wasn’t cold enough for it to last long. If they didn’t catch up quickly, they’d only be guessing where their prey had gone.
“So how far do we go before we give up on this?” Linda asked him. She’d obviously been doing the same calculations in her head. “We have about a half tank of gas, by the way.”
Dex jerked his thumb toward the back window. “I saw a hose in the back. We can siphon some gas out of some of these wrecks you’re driving around. I’ve heard that’s standard procedure for getting around.”
“Yeah, there’s a gas can, too, I’m sure,” Linda said. “Carly has a hose and a can in every vehicle. Gas supplies are down, and they’re gonna’ stay down. Whenever somebody goes out, there’s a good chance they’ll have to siphon their way back home.”
Dex’s eyes narrowed, as if he was crunching numbers. “That’s a little hose. Is that how you all got all that gas you got stored away? Sucking it out of wrecks?”
“They’re not all wrecks,” Linda said. “Just abandoned. But I think our supplies came straight from the source,” Linda said. “Gas stations, I mean. Did you ever see our tanker truck? I’ll bet that’s the first thing we stole when the ligh
ts went out. That was a little before my time, though,” she added.
“Just seems like it can’t last forever,” Dex said. “It worries me. We’re gonna’ run out. There ain’t enough abandoned cars out here to keep us going for much longer.”
“I’m sure The Committee knows that, same as you and me,” she replied, as she wiped the foggy buildup from the inside of the windshield so she could see, then flipped a few switches on the dashboard. “What a surprise. The defroster doesn’t work.”
“Hey, am I dreaming or are those tail lights up there?” Dex asked as he pointed up the road, which had straightened out for the first time since leaving Tabernacle.
“Holy cow!” Linda replied. “Are they dumb enough to turn on the lights like that? It isn’t even dark anymore!”
“Floor it!” Dex said. “Let’s catch ‘em before they know what hit ‘em!”
“I don’t know about all that,” Linda said, as she stepped on the gas. “But I’m gonna get close enough that they don’t lose us again. If they’re the ones who stole all our vans, maybe we can get them back.”
Dex shrugged. “Yeah, okay. I’m on board with that. If nothing else, we can find their hideout and go back later.”
After she’d cut the gap in half she slowed down again. “We’ll lose sight of them every time we go around a bend, but if we get any closer than this, they’re bound to spot us.”
“Okay,” Dex agreed. “Now we just have to remember to keep an eye on that gas gauge.”
‘Hopefully they’ll have the same problem,” Linda said. “I doubt Carly had that thing gassed up all the way before they stole it.”
~~~
They followed from a distance for the next two hours, managing to stay on the trail as the van moved steadily along several different roads. Linda spent the entire trip swerving around downed trees, deserted vehicles, and occasionally, filthy, emaciated human beings who were curious about the rare sight of traffic but too weak to present a challenge.
Super Pulse (Book 4): Defect Page 3