Kyle stepped out of the vehicle and handed Hughes the yellow rubber siphon hose.
The light in the sky faded almost to twilight as Hughes popped the gas cap off the Nova and dropped the hose into the tank. Kyle popped the gas cap off the Suburban. Hughes sucked on the dry end of the hose until a split second before he sense the gasoline would hit his lips, then placed the hose, now gushing with gasoline from the Nova, into the Suburban.
It went dry in just over a minute.
“Not even a quarter tank,” Hughes said. “But we have almost half a tank now, so we’re okay. We’ll just have to stop again early tomorrow.”
“Should we sleep here?” Annie said, still sitting in the Suburban’s back seat.
“Hell no,” Parker said and wiped sweat off his forehead.
“Outside town,” Hughes said. “Who knows what still might be slinking around here.”
Hughes had insisted they never drive at night unless fleeing a scene. Their headlights could be visible as far as fifty miles away in the open desert and would surely attract any surviving infected—if any miraculously still existed out in that cold—or, more likely, troublesome survivors. The Suburban made plenty of noise during the day, but it could only be heard from two or three miles away at the most.
So they drove a dozen or so miles from the town with no name and parked next to a fence built with axe-split wood as twilight faded to dusk. Kyle pulled sleeping bags and blankets out of the back and passed them up front.
Parker took first watch, Kyle would take second. Hughes fell asleep almost instantly, but woke again later to the faint sound of gunfire out in the blackness.
3
In the morning, Parker woke to the sound of clanking and rattling. He opened his eyes, his neck sore from spending yet another night in a car seat, and saw Annie setting up a camp stove on the roadside to make coffee.
The sun was about to come up and Parker saw the landscape of Idaho as if for the first time. The bare mountains on each side of the valley looked like desiccated bodies wrapped in leathery skin. No one lived on that land in any direction. Aside from the road, the only evidence humans had ever even set foot there before was the wood and wire fence next to the road, but where were the cows? Eaten by the infected, or simply long gone?
“Morning,” Annie said when she saw that he was awake.
Parker groaned and rubbed his neck. His chest tightened up and his face flushed. There it was again. That free-floating feeling of doom. It came over him every morning the instant he remembered who he was, where he was, and what had recently happened to him.
Nearly every moment of every day he felt like he’d snap. He felt as if everything—the mountains, the road, the truck, his companions, and, worst of all, his own mind—was gearing up to attack him. Paranoid didn’t even begin to describe it. How would he fare if he were in actual danger, if a pack of infected came at him, when just sitting there in the truck made him panicky?
He wanted to stop, to stay right there in Idaho by himself where he couldn’t hurt anyone, but he’d sworn an oath to Annie and to the others. She was the most precious person alive, and he would guard her with his life to the ends of the earth.
Kyle stirred in the back seat as Hughes walked the perimeter, shotgun in hand. Neither said good morning to Parker.
“We’re already almost a third of the way across Idaho!” Annie said.
“Let’s keep it down,” Hughes said quietly. “Gunfire last night. No telling who might be around here, who or what they were shooting at, or what they might want to shoot at today.”
Gunfire in the middle of the night in Nowheresville, Idaho. God, Parker thought as the warm feeling of dread spread to his feet and his hands. Even the safe parts of the world were still dangerous. How could the others be so flippant and casual?
“I saw the map,” Annie said, this time with her voice down. “Looks like we can drive across the entire state on this road and hardly pass a single sign of civilization.”
“Town of Fairfield is up ahead a few minutes,” Kyle said. “Maybe that’s where the gunfire was coming from.”
“Didn’t sound like it came from up ahead,” Hughes said. “Sounded like it was off toward those mountains.”
“At night?” Parker said. “What were they shooting at?” He imagined a cluster of tents attacked in the dark by a band of infected. Hungry hungry predators like himself. He slapped his own face so hard his cheeks stung.
Kyle stepped out of the truck and handed granola bars to Hughes and Annie and left Parker to find his own breakfast. Parker didn’t care. He had no appetite anyway. He’d hardly eaten for days and was surely dropping weight fast. He’d been trying to shed pounds for years and couldn’t pull it off, not even after the end of the world and the end of mass food production. He was losing pounds now, though, that was for damn sure. He finally had what he needed. The anxiety diet.
“You know,” Annie said, “things are going to change when we get to the Midwest and the South.” She poured water into a pan and ignited the camp stove. Parker envied her ability to carry out routine tasks with apparent peace of mind. “It’s a lot more crowded. There are cities, towns and farms everywhere. You can’t drive across entire states without running into thousands and thousands of people.”
“This is the easy part,” Hughes said. “Even Iowa is gonna be complicated.”
“Not as complicated as Louisiana and Georgia,” Annie said. “The infected aren’t going to freeze to death down there.”
Parker scoffed. “Then what the hell are we even doing?” he said. “If the South is overrun with those things, why are we even going there?”
“Because the Centers for Disease Control isn’t in Minnesota,” Annie said.
“For once in my life,” Kyle said, “I actually agree with this asshole. If we find a functioning hospital before we freeze, get shot, or are eaten alive, we should stop. Since when is the CDC the only facility that can study Annie’s blood and make a vaccine? We can’t save the world if we’re dead.”
Parker nodded at Kyle with gratitude. But the moment of peace and civility was shattered when he imaging ripping Kyle’s throat out with his teeth.
Good God, were these horrible thoughts ever going to stop?
What’s the point of surviving the infection if the virus left its “cured” victim with the mind of a maniac?
Annie hoped to reach Wyoming by sunset, not because Wyoming was anything special—though she had never been there and wanted to see what it looked like—but because she could cross another state off the list. After clearing Wyoming, she’d be almost halfway to Atlanta.
Which was actually most of the way to Atlanta. How hard would it be to float down the Missouri River? Even after reaching the warmer part of the country, the infected couldn’t reach them on water. They wouldn’t be in any actual danger until they got off the boat and headed toward Atlanta by ground. Atlanta was a five-hour drive from the coast—from Mobile, Alabama—in normal conditions. And they were not going to find normal conditions.
Less than a minute after resuming their drive, the desert gave way to dry farmland. Annie saw a sign on a giant mobile irrigation system that said, “Rain Rental.” It didn’t rain much in Idaho. Not in that part of Idaho, anyway. The desert would reclaim those fields fast without irrigation. In a year or two there might be no evidence farmland even existed there aside from that huge metal sprinkler.
Thank God for the desert, she thought, or the road would be buried in snow.
The Suburban approached a dozen dark and silent houses and barns clustered together. Annie wondered what had happened to the people who lived there. Did the infected get them? How would that even be possible in such isolation?
No, she thought, whoever lived in those houses must have left and gone somewhere else. Or else they were still there. Hiding behind curtains and waiting for the strangers to pass. She felt watched. Perhaps her subconscious noticed a twitching curtain in her peripheral vision or sudden movement
around the back of a house or behind some bushes.
Sometimes the presence of other humans was strangely detectable. Maybe all living things gave off vibrations that couldn’t be consciously felt but were noticed on some level anyway, the way animals could supposedly sense earthquakes coming even when scientific instruments didn’t register anything.
Annie knew she might be imagining things but nevertheless felt certain someone was watching. And if so, they were almost certainly armed.
She glanced at Parker. He had taken up permanent residence in the front passenger seat. He leaned forward and eyeballed those houses as if a pack of infected might burst from them at any moment.
Then the desert returned and the settlement vanished.
“Fairfield’s coming up in a sec,” Hughes said. He sounded tense too. Something was in the air. “It’s bigger than these little towns.”
Just moments later a road block appeared a few hundred yards up ahead. A half-dozen men with rifles stood in front of two SUVs blocking each lane.
Hughes slowed the truck.
Parker lurched forward in his seat. “They knew we were coming.”
“Looks that way,” Hughes said.
Those houses, Annie thought. Somebody had been watching the road. Somebody with a telephone or a radio.
Hughes slowed the truck almost to walking speed. None of the men raised their weapons. They seemed unbothered by an approaching strange vehicle, but—then again—there were six of them.
The men approached the Suburban on foot, their rifles still lowered. They wore mismatched clothing but otherwise behaved like professionals, like they knew what they were doing, like they’d done this before and do it all the time.
Hughes powered down his window. “Morning. Nice to see some faces out here.”
“Howdy,” one of the men said. He appeared to be in his mid-forties. Full beard. A few age lines on his forehead. He seemed relaxed. “If you want to pass through, we’ll need to escort you.”
“Not a problem,” Hughes said. “We’re on our way to Wyoming.”
“Figured,” the man said.
“Why’s that?” Hughes said.
“Lots of people been heading that way, toward Jackson and Lander, but especially Jackson.”
“What’s in Jackson?” Hughes said.
“It’s Wyoming’s biggest tourist town,” Kyle said. “You know, Jackson Hole. Near the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone.”
“Hotels,” the man said.
“They open for business?” Hughes said.
“They were,” the man said.
“For real?” Annie said. Hotels? Open for business?
“More hotels in Jackson,” the man said, “than anywhere else between Bend, Oregon, and Minneapolis.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Kyle said. “And they’re open?”
“Like I said,” the man said, “they were. Wyoming is isolated and empty. Makes Idaho look like Los Angeles. Thousands of people went there, and Jackson held on for a while. The hotels filled up, so people camped out in tents. Safety in numbers and all that. Better than sleeping out in the woods, you know? But sick people showed up. The virus spread through the tent city. A real shit show. No idea how it turned out. We’ve heard nothing about Jackson for weeks because nobody comes from that way anymore.”
“What’s that other town you mentioned?” Hughes said.
“Lander,” the man said. “It held on, too, for a while. Not as many hotels, but supposedly it managed to hold things together. Around 8,000 people there. No idea what it’s like now. Who knows? Might still be okay.”
“We’ll take you up on that escort,” Hughes said.
“Only catch,” the man said, “is that you ride with us. One of you can drive your truck. Her.” He pointed at Annie. “The rest of you ride with us, and you can’t bring anything with you, especially not any weapons.”
Parker tensed into a knot of aggression.
“Easy,” Hughes said and touched his arm.
“We’re not robbing you,” the man said. “We just need to ensure that you don’t rob us. Not much left to steal anyway.”
“How many people live here?” Kyle said.
“Used to be a little over 400,” the man said.
“And now?” Hughes said.
“Less,” the man said.
His name was Jeff, and he rode in the Suburban with Annie through town. Hughes, Parker and Kyle followed in another vehicle, a black SUV, under armed guard. Annie drove, presumably so Jeff could keep an eye on both of her hands. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and she appreciated that he pretended to trust her.
There wasn’t much to see in Fairfield. An empty RV park, a country store, a defunct Sinclair gas station, a ski and snowboarding shop, a boarded-up restaurant with a bar attached. Annie felt a brief surge of elation when she saw an airport.
It was really just a dirt airstrip, and she didn’t see any planes, but still. An airport.
“Does anyone in this town know how to fly?” she said.
“Not that I know of,” Jeff said.
“Are there are planes here?” she said.
“Just the airstrip,” he said. “No one has used it for months. Wyoming’s not very far. You might even reach it today.”
“We’re actually going a little bit farther,” she said and regretted it instantly.
“Where are you heading?” Jeff said, sounding a little surprised.
Annie couldn’t tell him they were on their way to Atlanta. He’d want to know why. Lord only knew what he’d do if she told him.
She checked the rearview mirror. Her companions still followed in the black SUV.
“I have family in Nebraska,” she said.
“Nebraska’s probably snowed in by now,” Jeff said. “You might want to head to Lander and ride out the winter. But if you’ve got family, well, I understand. As long as they aren’t in Omaha.”
So Omaha was gone too? Did Jeff know that, or was he just assuming? She did not want to ask.
“They’re in the Sand Hills, actually,” she said. She had no idea where the Nebraska Sand Hills were. She’d just heard that they were remote.
“Well,” he said. “Best of luck to you.”
And they reached the end of the town. Hughes, Parker and Kyle stepped out of the black SUV. Everybody shook hands.
“One other question,” Hughes said to Jeff. “I should have asked earlier.”
“What’s that?” Jeff said.
“What happened to Boise?”
“Boise,” Jeff said, “is gone.”
Annie swallowed hard.
“There’s something else you need to know too,” Jeff said. “Stay the hell away from Idaho Falls.”
“It’s bad?” Annie said.
“You have no idea,” Jeff said.
“What’s going on there?” she said.
“War,” Jeff said.
4
Back in the truck. They were always back in the truck. They even slept in the truck, and Kyle was sick of it. Sick of the truck. Sick of the drive. And sick more than anything of sharing that truck with a women he loved who’d barely talk to him let alone touch him, and the psychotic nutjob who’d tried to murder him.
And Parker just kept getting worse. The only question remaining was when, not if, the bomb in that man’s head finally went BOOM.
They passed dead town after dead town. Picabo, with its few random houses, a ranch supply store, and a Texaco station. Carey, larger than Fairfield but apparently vacant. The local bank, the woodworking shop, the post office that looked like a mobile home, the Mormon church, the school—all empty and derelict. Kyle sensed no movement or life there, not even insects.
“I wonder what happened to the people in these towns,” Annie said.
“Maybe they're still here,” Hughes said.
Parker held his pistol up to the glass.
“The hell’s the matter with you anyway?” Kyle said.
“I am not well,” Parker said.
“Believe me, we know,” Kyle said. “What specifically is your problem?”
Parker said nothing, but Kyle knew it had something to do with him being infected. The man was always a pain in the ass, but not like this. Kyle wondered how much the infection also changed Annie. He wouldn’t know because he hadn’t met her until after she recovered, but she seemed fine enough to Kyle.
“I think he has PTSD,” Annie said.
“So you’re a psychologist now?” Kyle said and wished he hadn’t.
“No,” she said. “We just talked. Back there in Oregon. He was traumatized by what happened. He’s replaying it in his mind over and over again on a loop.”
“I don’t think I will ever get over it,” Parker said.
Kyle wanted to say Parker wouldn’t live long enough to get over it if he didn’t figure out a way to calm down, but he knew nothing good would come of it.
“My sister used to have panic attacks,” Annie said. “This reminds me of what she used to go through. Look at how anxious he is all the time.”
She leaned forward in the back seat and placed her hand affectionately on Parker’s shoulder up in the front seat. Kyle went rigid.
Annie was a single woman traveling with three men. She wouldn’t be an apocalypse virgin forever. It was only a matter of time before she fucked one of them. She wasn’t coming on to Parker—Kyle understood that, it was obvious—yet Parker was the only one she was willing to touch. Annie wasn’t trying to be cruel. Kyle understood that too. Still, she might as well cut off his balls and be done with it.
“He’s frightened by the thoughts in his head,” Annie said.
“Terrified,” Parker said.
“I’ve had disturbing thoughts too since I was infected,” Annie said. “But they’re not me. They’re remnants of the disease. So I ignore them. Parker, all you have to do is stop taking them seriously.”
“I don’t know how,” Parker said.
Minutes passed in uncomfortable silence until they came to a road sign that said “Historical Site Ahead.”
Resurrection (Book 2): Into the Wasteland Page 3