I managed to tear my eyes away from the Black Spot and turned left, as Vance had told me. I was further relaxed when I remembered the last thing he had told us after giving directions to their location in Athens. He had said that if we happened to run out of gas along the way, to radio them and someone would come out to meet us.
Still, I’d rather not have that happen. I sped forward, giving that odd blackness on the horizon one last glance.
“My God, what is it?” Kendra asked.
“I don’t know. It’s not something I want to know, I don’t think.”
With that, we headed further down the road, following Vance’s directions.
The baby woke up shortly after that. Kendra nursed him and I could tell by the frustration on her face that her milk production wasn’t going as well as she’d like. Still, she let him stay there, pacifying himself on her breast. She seemed to enjoy it in a way that I’m sure I’ll never understand.
When I looked to the right five minutes later, I could see no sign of the Black Spot. It had dissipated at some point, allowing the colors of the real world to dominate again. Now I saw an open field and, further back, a few houses and a barn.
It was almost as if the Black Spot had never been there. And, as Vance had also said, that was the most dangerous thing.
13
We managed to get to Athens without running out of gas, although I’m sure that by the time I killed the engine in the parking lot to Miller’s Tires, we were running on fumes. The baby had soiled itself, and Kendra changed him with cloth diapers she had made several months ago from old thermal pajamas we had found in the Dunn’s bureau.
Miller’s Tires sat in the center of a dilapidated block. A few other buildings along the street still stood, but most had been burned. I couldn’t tell if it was the result of nuclear fallout or riots.
While Kendra changed the baby, I looked out of the window. Dusk would be creeping in soon, but Athens already seemed dark without it. Vance had told us to stay parked in the parking lot and that he’d come out to meet us within five minutes.
In that moment, waiting in the parking lot of Miller’s Tires, I was highly suspicious. The entire scenario seemed too good to be true. Then again, the concept behind covertly hiding the CB radio seemed to be something that someone with our safety in mind would do. If Vance and the people he was with were killers, why go through the trouble? Why not kill us in Monroe?
Because they are afraid of the Black Spot, I thought.
With that thought in my head, I heard a loud engine noise to my right. I looked in that direction and saw a large green dump truck turn the corner at the end of the street. It headed our way very slowly. There was a man standing on a platform of some kind behind the driver’s side door. He was smoking a cigarette and holding a machine gun.
This whole idea suddenly seemed bad to me. What the hell had I been thinking?
“Kendra…are you still okay with this?” I asked.
“I think so,” she answered. She finished changing the baby and tossed the dirty cloth into the back seat. “I’m not sure we really have a choice right now, anyway.”
I grabbed the AK that sat between us as the dump truck stopped on the side of the street.
The driver’s side opened and a man wearing eyeglasses stepped out. He brought a small pistol with him and said something to the smoking man on the platform as he looked towards our car. This guy was small in stature and looked almost waifish. If he was National Guard material, he was probably the guy that everyone had harassed during basic training. He looked like the type that had been bullied in high school and had sat in a corner during gym.
This man approached the car, leaving the smoking man standing on the truck’s side platform. When he saw that I wasn’t quite ready to open my door, he took a step back and lifted his hands into the air.
“I’m safe,” he said. “You have my word.”
I glanced to Kendra and badly wanted to kiss her as a husband would kiss his wife before entering into some sort of dangerous event. Instead, I only nodded to her and opened the car door with the AK still in my hand.
Neither of us said anything. The noise of the dump truck’s engine sounded like the growling of a nervous dog.
“I assure you, you don’t need that,” the man in glasses said. “We truly do want to help.”
“Are you Vance?” I asked.
“That’s me,” he said. “And the man standing on the truck behind me is Riley.”
“Is he military, too?” I asked.
“No. I’m the only military man in our group. The others are just people like you that managed to stay alive.”
“How many of you are there?” I asked.
“Six, myself included.”
I thought about this and looked back to Kendra. She was watching us with wide eyes. I could tell that she was looking for any sort of ambush, perhaps from the depths of the back of the dump truck.
“Look, I get your hesitation,” Vance said, “but there is no nice way to put this. You can come with us, get some rest, some food, whatever. You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you’d like. Or you can get in your car and leave. It’s no concern of mine, really. We’re just trying to help people that need it.”
I don’t know why, but I didn’t trust Vance. It was something about his voice. His lanky and almost feminine appearance did nothing to set my mind at ease. His hair was slicked back in a way that almost reminded me of those 50s and 60s photos I had seen of guys that so badly wanted to be James Dean. And his eyes were darting back and forth. Wasn’t that supposed to indicate guilt? I couldn’t remember.
Still, Kendra and the baby needed food—real food. And if Vance had it, I was willing to risk it.
“Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”
“You should hop on in the truck,” he said, smiling. “We try to keep a low profile. I don’t want a bunch of cars sitting around to clue violent people in, you know?”
I nodded and motioned for Kendra to get out of the car. She did so and I heard the baby making noises of complaint. He wasn’t crying, just fussy.
Vance smiled. “A cutie. A he or she?”
“He.”
“What’s his name?”
I couldn’t help but grin, despite my unease. “Baby.”
Vance let out a small barking laugh at this. Somehow, it fit his appearance perfectly. It was almost like a sound from a cartoon.
He walked to the passenger side of the dump truck and we followed. The man named Riley stepped down from his perch and introduced himself. I liked him much better than Vance but couldn’t figure out why. Maybe it was because I knew he wasn’t military and my mind instantly assumed that he was far less dangerous than Vance. Riley helped us with our few belongings and carefully placed them in the back of the dump truck by standing on tip toes from his little platform.
I climbed up into the truck and took the baby from Kendra. Vance helped her up into the front of the truck and when his hand braced the underside of her arm to give her support, my jaw clenched. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him touching her; it was simply that I was expecting him to pull her down, to beat her, to rape her.
That’s where my mind went instantly. I suppose it was only natural, given the tragedies she had endured in the last year or so. When she was finally sitting next to me in the cab, she grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. The baby calmed a bit, more relaxed now that he could feel both of us around him.
As we waited for Vance to walk back to the driver’s side and take his seat, Kendra gave me a smile. It, like the one I returned to her, was uncertain.
14
Vance drove us through what I assumed was Athens’ downtown district. Much of it looked to be in decent shape, untouched by bombs, the unnamable creatures, riots or looting. Still, it was very much dead. It looked like a ghost town. A few dented signs along the road bore warnings that led me to believe that this was one of the cities that had been under evacuation at some point during the str
ing of bombings.
Vance headed down a one-way street, going the wrong way, and stopped the dump truck in front of the gate to a small parking garage. I estimated that we were no more than three miles away from where we had left our car at Miller’s Tires.
“Here we are,” Vance said. Without further explanation, he killed the engine and opened his door.
I opened the passenger door and was impressed to see Riley already standing below us, waiting to help. I hopped down beside him and he assisted me in getting Kendra and the baby down. When we are all on the street, the baby started to fuss. He extended his hands towards me, making desperate little grunting sounds.
Kendra handed him to me and he settled down at once. I held him with my right hand and let him peer over my left shoulder. As I started to reach down for one of our bags—which I assumed Riley had unloaded for us—Vance shook his head.
“No man, you’ve got precious cargo. We’ll take your stuff.”
“Thanks,” Kendra said.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said.
It was obvious that Kendra and I were both uneasy about something; maybe it was the fact that neither of us had met a civil human being for quite some time. Kindness was foreign to us now and it was a virtue that apparently took some getting used to.
We followed Vance and Riley into the parking garage. Hesitant and dying daylight still lurked outside, but the gray of everything did nothing in the dark hollows of the parking garage. Once we were several yards away from the dump truck and the blocked entrance to the garage, Riley cut on a flashlight.
The baby made a sighing sound when he saw the light. He squirmed excitedly in my grip and I kissed the top of his fuzzy little head to calm him.
We walked to the far end of the lot. There were a few cars still occupying some of the spaces. They looked out of place somehow, like relics from an alien planet. Their headlights looked towards us, dead and useless.
We came to the far right corner where a red door was marked STAIRS. We went through that door and headed down. The dark inside the stairway was thick and the beam of Riley’s flashlight was like a solid physical object. We went down two flights of stairs and came to another door that led into a large room that was divided into sections by old cubicle walls. The room was lit by a flickering floor lamp on the other end of the room.
“This is home,” Vance said. “We’ve been here for about five months now. In those five months, you’re the first new people to come along.”
Further off, down a hallway to our right, I heard two voices. One was followed by soft male laughter. I looked around the room we stood in and saw that there was a mini fridge in the far corner. There was also a laptop plugged into the wall and, from what I could tell, was actually working. The glow of its screen along the wall was eerie and ghostlike.
“There’s electricity here?” I asked.
“Sort of,” Vance said. “When we found this place, some of the lights in the parking garage were still working. The electricity comes and goes. It’s been on for as long as two days, and out for as long as four. We still haven’t figured out what’s up. But we’ve been around Athens, checking it out. Everything within an eight block radius of here is the same. The power comes and goes. We figure it’s just some oddity in the grid from when the bombs hit.”
“Where did bombs hit near here?”
“Closest one was just outside of Atlanta. From what I understand, it was one of the last ones.”
“So…” Kendra said quietly. “You’re National Guard. You know everything that happened right down to the end, don’t you?”
“For the most part. And I’ll tell you whatever you want to know just as soon as we get you folks situated. We’ve got cots you can use for rest and we have food. It’s not great grub but it’s yours if you want it. Fresh water, too.”
Kendra let out a hitching noise that I had heard before. She was crying, but trying to hide it. As usual, she failed miserably. At hearing it, the baby shifted in my arms, looking for his mother. When he found her, his eyes never left her.
“Also,” Riley said, “the others will want to meet you.”
“Well,” Vance said, almost as if he were trying to interrupt. “Almost all of the others will. Crazy Mike is off limits as far as I’m concerned.”
“Crazy Mike?” I asked.
“I’ll explain later. He survived one of the Black Spots. He’s all screwed up now.”
“We’re still not sure about the Black Spots, either,” I said.
“We did see one you mentioned on the way in,” Kendra said, getting her tears under control. “Well, I guess that’s what it was.”
“We’ll tell you all about those, too,” Vance said. “But first, let’s get you guys as comfortable as we can.”
He led us to the end of the large room and then down a hall where dozens of cardboard boxes were stacked along the entire back wall, nearly to the ceiling. Some of them had been opened. On a few, I saw the familiar logo of Chef Boyardee, a man with whom I had become very well acquainted during my college years. There was a folding table in the middle of the room, the type people usually played cheap hands of poker on.
“Grab a bite to eat,” Vance said. “Riley, can you show them where everything is? I’d like to let the others know that our guests have arrived.”
“Sure thing,” Riley answered.
Vance headed back towards the large room and left Riley to show us where the plastic cutlery was located. Kendra and I walked to the boxes, seeing Ravioli, Ramen Noodles, marshmallows, Moon Pies, an assortment of Campbell’s soup, and even candy bars.
I watched as Kendra held up a Twix like it was some sort of cosmic talisman. She eyed it with a sad sort of awe and started crying again.
I stepped up behind her and placed my free arm around her. The baby almost instantly started grabbing for her. She took him, still holding the Twix, and we stood huddled together like we were a real family.
15
Despite my early inclinations, I warmed up to Vance pretty quickly. He had seen how desperate we were to have answers and he wasted no time in giving them to us. I was on my second can of Chef Boyardee ravioli when he came into the supply room. Riley was still showing us where everything was located in the small supply room that I suppose, served as their cafeteria.
“Bring what you’re eating into the big room,” Vance said. “I’ll tell you everything I know and then fill you in on what we plan to do.”
Not wanting to seem like I was being a glutton, I finished off my can and tossed it in the trashcan rather than taking it out in front of strangers. Kendra was still slowly eating a can of chicken noodle soup, relishing each spoonful. She was letting the baby try some but he didn’t seem to like it. He was enjoying a small mound of saltine crackers that Riley had offered us. I had to crush them down to pebble-sized crumbs for him, but he still enjoyed them.
We walked into the large room with Riley leading us. We found Vance sitting at the table with four other people. All of them were men and I noticed right away that the beefy-looking man sitting in the center stared Kendra up and down without really trying to hide the fact that he was doing so.
“Everyone,” Vance announced to the group, as if it were a business meeting, “this is Eric, Kendra, and their baby. As we have all discussed previously, they are welcome to stay here for as long as they want. Any objections?”
Everyone shook their head. The rather large man was still staring at Kendra. I stepped in front of her to block his view and his gaze suddenly traveled to the scarred top of the desk everyone was sitting at.
Vance pointed around the table as he made introductions. The first man he pointed to was about my size with blonde hair. “This is Danny Peterson.”
“Hi,” Peterson said.
Kendra and I nodded. The baby stared blankly, placed two of his fingers in his mouth, and began to suck at them.
Vance introduced the other three in the same lukewarm fashion. Rick Greenbriar was an older man, around
sixty or so. He had the kind of eyes that made you think he was tired all of the time. Darrel Hayes was a short fellow that wore glasses that were being held together by a piece of electrical tape along the nose. Sitting beside Hayes was Jeremy Watts, the beefy asshole that couldn’t keep his eyes off of Kendra. His eyes had tried to find her behind me again by the time Vance had finished his introductions.
“And then there’s Crazy Mike,” Riley added. “But he stays to himself. He knows you guys are here. I’m sure he’ll introduce himself soon enough.”
“So where are you headed?” Greenbriar asked. Even the way he spoke made it sound like he might fall asleep at any minute.
“Virginia,” I answered.
“The Blue Ridge Mountains, I assume?” Vance asked.
“Yeah.”
“You were willing to take the chance that those Safe Zones were real?” Hayes asked.
“We have a pretty good idea that they are real,” I said. “We found some convincing information on a man we had to kill when he tried to take over the house we were staying in.”
Sure, it was a bit too much to reveal, but I thought that adding this last bit might give Kendra and I some sort of advantage. Standing there in front of people that had lived together for a while made me feel very vulnerable. Any way I could make us look a bit tougher was a blessing.
“What kind of information?” Vance asked.
“A picture of some sort of military gate and a piece of paper with ID information on it.”
“Do you have that with you?” Peterson asked.
“Yeah, it’s in one of our bags.”
“Well,” Vance said, “we all know that they’re real enough. I saw the one in Florida. There’s also one somewhere in upstate New York. There was one in Kansas, but that one was destroyed by one of the bombs. It apparently wasn’t built strong enough.”
“Were they really killing people near the end?” Kendra asked. “The people that tried to get into the Safe Zones without one of those tickets or whatever—was the military really killing them?”
Nests: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller Page 5