No more waiting for the Guard and their handouts.
He’d find food tonight.
And he knew just where to look. Before the Redaction, gringos had moved into the gated community a mile down the street. Sure the Guard would be watching it pretty carefully, but he’d observed their routine from his rooftop. He could find a way inside. Many of them had evacuated early. They should have plenty of supplies. He’d also check their garages for seeds. Surely, they’d have some.
And pigs would smile.
Their kind didn’t grow things. They hired wet backs like him to grow things for them. After sprinkling powdered garlic, onions, cumin and chili powder to the beans, he adjusted the temperature to a simmer and set a lid on the beans. Cleaning his hands, he snipped off cilantro from the window box, chopped it up and tossed it into the rice. Once the water had been added, he set the bowl in the microwave and turned it on.
Hoisting the bucket out of the sink, he filled another with hot water and set the dirty dishes inside.
He should make a list. Going out once was dangerous; twice would be suicide. Opening the drawer near the door, he removed a pad and pencil. One by one, he opened each cabinet. Bare shelves glared back at him. Stick with the basics. Flour. Rice. Salt. The next cabinet had a container of oatmeal. Peeling back the lid, he looked inside. Enough for one more day.
If he didn’t eat again.
His stomach growled.
Oatmeal. Powdered milk. Any mixes. Maybe he’d find a little cash for a trip to the burger joint. He crumbled up the list. Who was he kidding? He’d take whatever he could find.
He picked up his backpack and peered inside. Screwdriver and flashlight. All he’d need to break into someone’s home. And to think Popi thought breaking and entering would ruin his life. His chest tightened at thoughts of his father. “Sorry Popi. But this is the only way I know to keep the niños safe and fed.”
Manny set his hand inside the bottom of the pack. If the supplies from this scavenging trip were to last more than a couple days, he’d need more packs. Leaving the kitchen, he walked by Jose and Mikey. The stack of toys by the front door told him they were still planning their adventure outside.
Just as he reached his sister’s bedroom, the wind chimes jangled. Air lodged in his throat. He’d set the chimes up as an alarm, making certain they were too low to the ground to ring from the wind. He paused and caught the clip of words. A heartbeat later, the chain rattled and scratched at the Saltillo tile in the kitchen as someone tried to open the door.
Chapter Six
Mavis’s chilled fingers fell away from the metal lock. An arrow. Coming right at her! The brass tip stared like an unblinking eye against the black fletching. Time stretched to an eternity between heartbeats.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! She had hoped for a better ending than being skewered by one of her neighbors. Death was not on her schedule today. Sunnie needed her. Crouching in the street, Mavis released the energy stored in her coiled muscles and launched herself from the asphalt.
The wind whistled through the toes of her left foot. Twisting in flight, she focused on the Civic’s hood. The white surface ballooned until it filled her vision. This was going to hurt, but at least not as much as the arrow. She hoped.
Something scratched the sole of her right loafer before she heard the thwack and quiver of the arrow striking the blacktop. A soft thud followed. Good God, I’ve lost a shoe.
Her elbow hit the hood. A lightning bolt of fire zinged along her arm and shot out her fingers and skull. Mavis squeezed her eyes shut. Her hip landed a second before the rest of her body. Metal groaned and buckled under her weight. When she slid over the ‘H’ emblem, the ornament tore at her clothes. Heat scorched her exposed skin as she squeaked to a stop.
Holy crap! She’d done it! Opening her eyes, she stared at the windshield wiper an inch from her nose. She collapsed onto her back and stared up at the purple sky. The world fast-forwarded until she joined the current time stream. Her heart mule-kicked her ribs and terror buzzed inside her skull like Africanized bees.
“No!” Sunnie’s screams pierced the falling darkness.
Not another arrow! Mavis shoved with her right hand. Tucking her other arm close, she rolled to the driver’s side. How long did it take to reload a bow, anyway? Her legs spun in empty space before her stomach squeezed into her esophagus.
Blacktop rose up to pummel her. Mavis extended her arms. Her palms slapped the pavement, then her knees. Joints popped, something creaked and a scream snagged in her dry throat. With the pebbles on the street acting as lubricant, her limbs slid out from under her. The breath left her lungs as she belly flopped.
Darkness crowded her vision. Breathe. She wracked her brain for the technique but only received an empty cartoon bubble.
What kind of genius forgot how to breathe?
Panic swam in the fringes of her control, and her heart pounded in her ears. God, what a stupid way to die—killed in a swan dive off a Honda. Just as her vision had been reduced to a pinpoint of color, she sucked in a lungful of air, and then gagged as a pebble and leaf hit the back of her throat. Mavis spat out the artifacts. If she’d had any inkling her day would go like this, she’d have stayed in bed.
For a month.
She rolled to her side and rested her head on her upper arm. Pain vibrated through her like she’d been struck with tuning fork. Head, shoulders, knees, toes. The aches mimicked the lyrics to a baby’s coordination activity. She blinked. And just how in Hades could her eyelashes hurt?
“Aunt Mavis?” Sunnie’s voice broke over her name before silence permeated the clearing.
Mavis opened her mouth. Instead of words, a moan slipped passed her lips.
“If she’s dead,” her niece yelled. “I’m going to shove your bow and arrows where the sun doesn’t shine, and I’m not talking about Alaska in wintertime.”
Mavis smiled then winced. Pain netted a chuckle before it could shake loose. Only a member of her family would threaten someone who held a weapon.
A weapon!
Sunnie! Mavis’s muscles trembled, but she whipped onto her belly and pushed to her feet. Her groan disappeared in the pops and creaks coming from her body. Forty-two had never seemed so old. Clammy handprints marked the path she used to claw up the Civic’s side. Peering through the driver’s side window, Mavis bit her lip to stop from screaming.
Sunnie stood between the arrow’s source and the car. “Do you hear me?”
The fool girl hadn’t even left a door open so she could dive into the Civic if more projectiles started flying.
“Sunnie!” Mavis hoisted herself to her feet. Her stomach cramped. So what if she’d just made herself a target again? She had to make sure the shooter didn’t target her niece. “Get inside the car!”
“Aunt Mavis.” Sunnie spun around. Her lips parted in a large smile and light blazed from her eyes. “You’re okay.”
Okay was a prognosis she might have in a week.
“I’m not shot if that’s what you mean.” Her niece might not say the same thing if she didn’t find cover soon. Hobbling around the car, Mavis approached Sunnie.
“Oh, you’re hurt.” The girl stepped closer to Mavis, away from the door, away from safety. Her attention swooped down to the ground before soaring back to Mavis’s face. “And you’ve lost a loafer.”
“I don’t care about the stupid shoe.” Gritting her teeth, Mavis toddled to a stop, placing herself between Sunnie and their sniper. “Just get into the car; I’m sure the shooter has reloaded by now.”
Sunnie crossed her arms and planted her feet hip’s width apart. “Obviously, Mr. Quartermain didn’t recognize us when he fired.”
Mavis swore, repeating the curse words in five languages.
“We should report him to the authorities, or at least, take away his bow.” Sunnie gathered her hair into a ponytail and corralled it with her purple scrunchie. “Old people have very poor eyesight.”
Great, now the inside of Mavi
s’s head hurt, too. She reached for the handle and yanked open the car door. “Get. In. Side.”
Proper elocution did not require moving her jaw.
Sunnie frowned at the Civic’s butter cream interior. “Why is he firing at us anyway?”
Could teenagers do anything on a sane timetable? With the flat of her palm, Mavis spun her around and pushed her toward the open door.
Pausing with her hands on the roof of the car, Sunnie twisted at the waist and rose up on her toes. “We live in this neighborhood, you douche bag. Stop shooting at us!”
“Did it ever occur to you that Mr. Quartermain isn’t the one firing arrows?” Mavis grabbed the back of her niece’s jacket and tugged her down before shoving her face first into the car. “Stay inside and stay down.”
“Of course, it is. No one else would use such a stupid weapon.” Using her feet, Sunnie stopped the door before it could close. “He can’t do this to us, Aunt Mavis.”
“Well, he did.” Blades of yellow light cut across the dark street. Mavis checked her watch. Six-twenty. Curfew was officially in effect. She glanced toward the main intersection.
The cherry on her day would be if the Marines went patrolling in their tanks.
She didn’t want to be blown up any more than she wanted to be shot with an arrow.
Should they abandon the car and walk home? By cutting through the park, they could be home in five minutes. But they’d be unprotected, out in the open. She could think of five places where a sniper could ambush them from the safety of the bushes. And then there was the fence hemming in part of the park.
No walking. No splitting up. They’d take the car, together. But first, she had to get through that lock.
“You work for the government.” Sunnie jerked forward when Mavis reopened her door. “Tell him.”
“In case you missed it, the government isn’t exactly in charge. It was people like Mr. Quartermain who kept the looters, rapists and other undesirables out.” Had the power made him nuts? Mavis doubted it. Despots, dictators and tyrants gave glimmers of the sickening hunger long before they seized absolute power.
Someone else pulled that bow string.
Her skin tightened over her skeleton. She hated unknowns. They had a tendency to blow up in her face. She stroked the white scar following her jaw line. Sometimes literally. Crouching behind the door, she swept her niece’s legs inside then reached under the seat.
“But it’s not right.”
Had she ever been that naive, believed the Hollywood fairytale that good would triumph over evil? Mavis’s fingers brushed smooth duct tape before encountering cold metal.
“People didn’t conform to that rule before the Rattling Death.” Wrapping her hand around the hard edges, she pulled. The ripping sound echoed around the car.
“Well, they should have. We live here. We’re just trying to…” Sunnie jumped on her seat before hugging her knees to her chest. “What are you doing?”
“Surviving.” Mavis rocked back on her heels and inspected the gun. Her tongue felt overly large in her mouth. Stars twinkled in front of her eyes before she deepened her breathing.
Yanking the silver duct tape off the Sig-Sauer, she checked the chamber. A shiny brass casing winked back at her. She ejected the magazine. Full. Good. She might need all thirteen rounds. With shaking hands, she shoved the clip home, spun about and scanned the area.
Not even a lizard stirred in the skeletal remains of the hedge. As for the dumpsters and burned out cars… Mavis dismissed them. The arrow had come from high ground. She focused on the trees. Although two stories tall, the scraggly pines couldn’t conceal the fading pink rays of daylight.
Nowhere to hide there.
“Where did you get that gun?”
“Under the seat.” Refraining from throwing a duh at her niece, Mavis eyed the eucalyptus. Hanging branches and a profusion of silvery leaves provided a possible hunter’s blind in the middle of the third tree and the sixth tree. Could there be more than one shooter?
Wind gusted through the eucalyptus, stirring the round leaves. Red played peek-a-boo in the waving branches of the sixth tree. There. A child’s fort hidden behind the trees. A perfect place for the sniper to pick off his target. She thumbed off the safety and settled her finger on the trigger.
Leaning forward, Sunnie whispered, “Do you know how to use it?”
“I’m the wife of a Marine.”
“Yeah, but…”
“A Marine doesn’t pull his weapon, unless he is prepared to use it.” To kill. “And that’s the way he teaches his wife.” Cupping the bottom of the Sig Sauer, Mavis aimed for the thickest portion of the sixth tree and noted the curling, brown-tipped leaves. Someone had cut a branch for concealment, and the vegetation was slowly dying.
“Have you ever shot someone?”
Mavis shrugged. In all the years she’d been licensed to carry, she’d never shot anyone. Her husband, Jack, had made certain she’d never needed to.
She might need to now.
“I don’t want to shoot anyone.” That wouldn’t be neighborly. Falling back on her training, she emptied her mind, focused on believing the gun was an extension of her hand. Standing, she kept a bead on the target. “But we need to get home. Mr. Quartermain? It’s Mavis, Mavis Spanner, Jack’s wife.”
“I know who you are.” The voice that answered rose then cracked. A male definitely, but not Mr. Quartermain. This was a kid still in the throes of puberty.
Mavis’s eye twitched. His age might make him reckless, more inclined to shoot. But who was he? She scrolled through a mental index file of all the teenage boys in her neighborhood.
“You’re not welcome here anymore, Mrs. Spanner. You’re infected.”
Mavis’s lips twitched. Mrs. Spanner. There was only one person old fashioned enough to insist his grandson address married ladies properly—Mr. Quartermain. God forbid, she should shoot her neighbor’s only surviving grandchild. But what was his name? Kevin, no. Not a K, but a J sound.
“I can assure you that I’m not infected.”
“You went out in public.” Branches stirred in the breeze, except the ones attached to the fort. “You could be sick.”
“Get in the back seat, Sunnie. Keep low to the floor and away from the windows.” Mavis stepped out from behind the car door and pushed it shut with her hip. Aches rolled through her like the rumble of distant thunder. “The public gathering ban has been lifted. There have been no new influenza infections in months. Look at me. I’m not flushed, feverish, coughing or sneezing. I’m healthy.”
The boy stood up, leaving only his legs concealed behind the hunter’s blind. His thin shoulders and pepperoni pizza acne marked him as a teen. X’s marked the location of the Smiley face’s eyes on his gray tee shirt. “How do you know?”
Mavis took a single step toward the front of the car and the lock. “Everyone should know the symptoms of the influenza by now. But I know about the deaths because I tracked the pandemic for the CDC.” She resisted the urge to cross the fingers of her bottom hand. Sure the Centers for Disease Control had used her information and contagion models, but theirs hadn’t been the signature on her paycheck. “I work as an epidemiologist.”
Not such a big lie. She had before she was let go. Kind of.
Now she protected Sunnie, kept her safe. She mentally winced and kept her grip on the gun steady despite the sweat making her palms slippery. Following a gauntlet into an ambush wasn’t exactly a bang-up protection job.
“You’re the government.” Shaggy brown hair blew into the kid’s eyes as he drew the bow’s string back farther. “You’re responsible for killing everyone, for locking us in our houses until we starve, and subjecting us to this totalitarian rule.”
Whoa! Totalitarian rule? Who’d been messing with this kid’s head? The internet, of course. While it had kept people from going crazy during the quarantine, it had also given rise to some bat guano theories. Armed, crazy and young—he was a dangerous trifecta. “The
government is not responsible for the influenza.”
“Yes, they are.” The boy nodded. His hair flapped against his forehead and his arm dipped. “North Korea has the proof.”
Sweet Jesus! Her gaze darted to the glowing streetlamp before returning to her target. Time shackled her as she inched another step forward. North Korea again. Mavis hoped some big Chinese military leader just got a fork shoved up his behind. One of those long grilling forks would be nice. “Look, Jasper—”
“Justin.” He raised the arrow, until it pointed at her heart.
“Justin.” Mavis stressed his name. Good gravy, didn’t these kids have to read Shakespeare in school anymore? “The government’s response was as swift as it could be. The CDC issued warnings from the first confirmed case. Press releases went out. It even got a sound byte on TMZ. Nobody listened. People took cold medicine and went to work. Sure, the drugs reduced their symptoms, but they were carriers of the disease, spreading it to everyone through the recycled heating ducts.”
Justin shook his head, but his aim didn’t waver. “The government caused it.”
Mavis held her breath. Please don’t say it.
“You caused it.”
And he said it. Not that she blamed him. Everyone wanted someone to blame. She just didn’t want to be the scapegoat. Mavis reached the front of the Civic and inched along the bumper toward the driver’s side.
“No one is responsible, Justin. A pig in Kansas City was patient zero. He infected the others in the bull pen awaiting slaughter then spread it to all the workers.” Somehow she doubted the kid appreciated the irony that the animal humans used to grow their vaccines had resulted in the deaths of so many. “There were a record number of conventions in the city all wrapping up.” In a perfect example of Murphy’s Law, many of those people traveled around the globe for a living. “People sneezed in taxis and coughed in airports, bus terminals and train stations. Before the first human patient staggered into the emergency room, the influenza had spread around the world.”
Redaction: Extinction Level Event (Part I) Page 5