Atlanta Bound

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “Sorry.” At least he sounded a little chastened. Not much, though.

  Not enough.

  “Are we gettin close?” Steph gave Phyl a funny sideways glance. She could probably tell the older woman was on her last nerve, and her slight grimace said she knew exactly why, too.

  “I dunno. Ginny said something about Saratoga. Look for signs.” Phyllis forced her fingers to relax, pushed her shoulders down. She longed for a yoga class, a decent cappuccino, and a few hours with a book. “My hobby was always makeup. Kind of like painting, except you’ve got something living to color in, you know?”

  “Painted ladies,” Mark said, and laughed. The vehicle shuddered, and there was a splash. “Ow, shi—I mean, shoot.”

  The efforts they took not to swear in front of her was oddly charming. Phyllis took her foot off the brake and dispelled a grim smirk. “Rough road ahead, kid. Sit down and put a seatbelt on, willya?”

  Steph gave her another sideways glance. The girl was smiling.

  And now, so was Phyllis.

  A Different Vocation

  “We’re getting close.” Ginny leaned forward, all but willing the truck to go faster. Her thin wan face was lit up like Christmas and Traveller had caught her excitement. “It’s only a couple hours from Oneida. The roads are good, right?”

  The hound, sitting right next to her with his ears perked as far as possible, looked at Lee too, obviously expecting him to say something.

  Lee feathered the accelerator. “They’ve been good, ayuh.” Caution was called for, even if Harris could pilot a wrecker like nobody’s business. Duncan had done some roadwork in his life, looked like.

  Lee also suspected some of that roadwork had been of the orange jumpsuit variety, but that was just a feeling. Fellow had been in the service too, and some of the body language was the same. Not all of it, but enough.

  Besides, what did it matter? Law trouble didn’t matter after the end of the world. Lee had a few uncomfortable suppositions about the sickness going through prisons, though. Men locked in cages just like pets inside houses, and if they were immune…well, it didn’t bear thinkin’ about, bein’ in lockup when the critters came callin’.

  “I wonder if Fran’s given birth. Mom’s going to just be beside herself.” Ginny subsided into the seat, but a few moments later was leaning forward again, fiddling with her pretty grey gloves. “She wanted to know, but Fran didn’t. If it was a boy or a girl, you know. Fran said it destroyed the mystery, and Mom said she needed to know to buy a layette.”

  “What’s that now?” It sounded fancy.

  “The things the baby wears home. You know—onesies, blankets, spit rags, the first few diapers.” Ginny caught herself. “What do you call it?”

  “Never had any reason to know,” he mumbled. Christ in his glory, but she was beautiful when she was this happy. She was beautiful all the time, but especially when she was happy. And here he was, closer to her than he had any right to be.

  Bracing himself for the worst.

  “I guess not.” She grinned and patted Traveller’s head; the truck handled a shallow curve and hit a long stretch of slush.

  Every time the chains rasped he all but flinched, dreading having to take them off and deal with Ginny’s well-disguised impatience at the delay. “Ginny…”

  “Hm?” Her braids glowed. Now he knew what she looked like with her hair down, all that rippling chestnut glory full of golden threads. He even knew what it was like to sink his fingers in, and it was just as soft as he’d imagined.

  Everything about her was as soft as he’d imagined.

  “We don’t know what we’re gonna find there.” He spaced out the words deliberately, eating up time, slowing her down. “I ain’t sayin don’t get your hopes up, but…”

  “But that’s exactly what you’re saying,” she finished. “And you’re right, yes. I’m just excited.”

  That was one way to put it. She was looking forward to arriving somewhere she thought something good was waitin’, and the letdown was gonna be fierce. He’d seen it more than once, when privates were thinking they’d get some rest and a hot meal, finding a cold camp and another serving of shit waiting for them instead.

  “I know,” he said, helplessly. His knuckles were painfully chapped, rough-reddened skin glaring even in the overcast. Clouds would help keep it warmer at night, but the risk of more water falling from the sky was not to be sneezed at. There was a scrape across the back of his right hand, one he couldn’t remember getting. It was a damn shame he was allowed to put those hands on her, even for a moment. “I just don’t want you hurt, that’s all.”

  “They might be fine.” Those eyes of hers, dark but with a gleam to them. “Right? I mean, it’s possible they’re…not fine, but really, they might be.”

  “Ayuh.” And Big Rock Candy Mountain might be a real place, too. Lee turned the wheel a fraction, stopping the slide before it began. No use in saying anything pessimistic.

  He wanted to, though. He wanted to prepare her for the likely, if not the inevitable.

  Ginny settled in the seat again. Traveller’s tail tried to wag, but the dog was sitting on it, so his hind end just scratched itself deeper and deeper. The hound licked his lips and glanced at Lee again, obviously expecting something.

  Shit. Lee Quartine was talking more than he ever had in his life, but it probably wasn’t helping. “If they’re all good, Ginny, we got some plannin to do. We’ll get ’em into the RV and set out for Atlanta.”

  “So you have thought about it.” Did she have to look so pleased? Her eyes all lit up, studying him like he’d met with expectations for once in his life. Or even surpassed them.

  “Course I have, darlin.” And wasn’t it fine to say darlin’ out loud, instead of just in his head? “Get close enough to see if’n there’s any radio traffic. If not, we head south a bit, then swing west.”

  “To where? Atlanta?”

  “If it looks good there. If it don’t, California, I reckon.” But only after it thawed, since the Continental Divide was nothing to sneeze at in winter. Then, if ol’ Cali was crawling with critters, maybe up the West Coast a bit. Seemed the most reasonable option; less nasty bitey things, plenty of water. “Good weather, lots of stuff layin around to be picked up.”

  “Crossing the whole continent.” She shivered, though the heat was on.

  “Won’t start until spring, I reckon.” And by spring he might have other ideas, or they might have found an enclave of survivors worth settlin’ in. Maybe even Atlanta, if they were still functioning and it wasn’t a trap or a pipe dream. “If this thing is worldwide, Ginny, we got ourselves a lot of work to do.”

  “That’s true.” Now she sagged against the bench seat, a faint frown creasing her forehead. “I’ve been thinking about that. If it is worldwide, like the man on the television said. The implications.”

  Now there was a three-dollar word, and one he didn’t like. It was usually used when the brass wanted to hamstring the boots on the ground. “Gonna hafta grow our food. When the gas runs out, there’ll be trouble.”

  “Yeah. They made movies about that part. Mad Max. Did you ever see those?“

  “Can’t say as I did.” The last movie he’d seen was True Grit, John Wayne and a little girl too brave for her own good.

  Wasn’t that ironic.

  “It’s enough to give you nightmares.” Ginny stared out the windshield, still strung tight as a guitar string. “You know, I thought I had it. The flu. And it made me think, well, if I wasn’t immune, how many survivors are carriers? How many just hadn’t caught it through luck?”

  Good Lord. She was just too damn smart. He had to tear his gaze away from her pretty profile and watch where the truck was going. “Well, you didn’t have it.” A lie, a damn lie, and he was storing up trouble.

  He just couldn’t help himself.

  “So immunity is probably a good explanation.” But her left hand rubbed at the inside of her right elbow, a quick, unconscious movement
. Had he hurt her, jamming the needle in? “But I thought about it, and it wasn’t comforting.”

  Don’t think about it, he wanted to tell her. That never worked, so he picked something else. “Borrowin trouble, Miss Virginia.”

  “I specialize in that, I think.” A wry smile, lighting her somberness. “I have all my life.”

  “Well, it’s my job now. You ever thought about pickin a different vocation?”

  Amazingly, she laughed. There was almost nothing as sweet as a pretty woman who liked your jokes. Maybe Big Q felt that little hitch in his chest when Nonna found something funny. Had his grandfather ever felt this…well, unsteady, hoping her gravity could keep him nailed down?

  “I’ll work on it,” she said, and clasped her gloved hands, looking out the windshield like she could see their destination shimmering in the distance. When she found out it was a mirage, well, he wasn’t looking forward to that. But he pressed the accelerator again, just a tad.

  Every minute shaved off their trip was one less minute she had to work herself up.

  Terribly Normal

  Fenton Acres, the snow-choked sign on the brick wall said, under a lacework of winter-bare ivy vines. The sky was downright ugly again, but what concerned Ginny more was the wrought-iron gate.

  It was wide open, the small post with the keypad for visitors or those who forgot their clickers wrenched almost-free of its base. Looked like someone had been in a hurry and sideswiped it, and the back of her throat was full of hot acid. “Take the first right,” she said, and realized she was leaning so far forward her seatbelt cut into her shoulder.

  “All right.” Lee reached for the walkie-talkie. “Juju? We’re goin in.”

  “Ten-four.” The 4x4 crept behind them. Duncan was taking a turn driving the RV, and after that it would be Ginny’s job. Juju had Phyllis in his car, and Ginny might have been amused wondering how they’d get along, but she was too busy trying to calm her heart down and sit still.

  The slush had hardened with the temperature dropping, and the melt hadn’t reached here. “Maybe I should drive,” she said, knowing it would just eat up precious time if they had to stop and change. “I know the roads.”

  “Doin just fine.” Lee’s eyes had narrowed again, and the truck drifted up to the first stop sign. “Good thing it’s still deep enough for chains.”

  There was the MacAllisters’ sprawling ranch, and the Smiths’ high-built Victorian. Both were dark and shuttered, unbroken seas of snow covering driveway, yard, and fence. It could have been just a regular power outage except for the stretches of unplowed white.

  Even the houses she didn’t know the names for looked wrong, hiding under pale cloaks. The one on Task Street with the cedar almost swallowing its semicircular driveway glowered through broken windows, and her heart plunged before leaping to rabbit in her throat again. “A left at the next one—not the stop sign, before it.” I sound calm. Giving Lee directions as if this was a normal trip, as if they’d driven from Cotton Crossing on regular roads, passing regular gas stations, talking abut normal things.

  Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth all passed. Nothing stirred, and the sky was a flat iron pan. It was going to start snowing again. Was anyone watching through the windows? There was the doctor’s house, and the lawyer Dad sometimes golfed with—what was his name? She remembered his steel-rimmed spectacles and how his nose always seemed to be sunburned, but not his name.

  “You grew up here?” Lee feathered the brake; the truck slid and he immediately eased off.

  Was he pitying her? Even though the yards were big, the houses were far too close together for someone who lived on acreage. It wasn’t the sort of neighborhood a kid could tear through on their bike, or go exploring and getting dirty. “No, they moved out here when Dad retired. Before that we lived in the city.”

  “You mean New York?”

  “Mh-hmm.” Upper West Side probably meant less than nothing now. Her childhood home had been sold to a nice new lawyer at Dad’s firm; Kevin and his partner had been overjoyed.

  Nice boys, Mom had said, but what will they do when one of them gets married? Neither Flo nor Ginny had the heart to tell her.

  Dad had looked slightly pained, that was all. I’ll be at the club, Esther. Those six familiar words.

  “It’s up here on the left.” No tire tracks. No shoveling. The houses slumped under heavy white blankets, and there was nothing moving. “It’s too quiet.”

  Lee glanced up from the road at regular intervals, taking in the scenery. “Mostly old people livin here?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Huh.” He said nothing else.

  She couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad huh. He seemed to have several, one for each occasion, each layered with meaning.

  Finally, finally, their goal came into view. “That’s it. There.” A familiar stony rectangle built to look like a farmhouse, the apple trees skeletal and naked, the wide front yard an undulating ocean of white. More bare branches lifted in back, the trees Dad groused about in fall, raking even though the landscapers came by weekly.

  Ginny let out a small shocked breath.

  The huge bay window in the living room was shattered. The garage door was half open, icicles dripping from its edges and reaching for the driveway. The nice, sturdy house leered drunkenly in the failing light. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Lee…”

  The blue-painted front door was wide open.

  Lee’s truck rolled to a halt. He studied the front of the house. It was still deadly silent, not even a quiver of wind among cold branches.

  “Coulda been looters,” he said, finally. “Couple other places here busted open, too.”

  Why didn’t I think of that? She clutched at the relief, but underneath it was a dark, tight sensation. “Maybe they went somewhere for Fran.” Her mouth was dry, her hands numb. Traveller whined softly, sensing tension and maybe, just maybe, a chance to get out and stick his nose into something fragrant.

  “Your sister.” Lee nodded, but he didn’t put the truck into park yet. “She have a place?”

  “She moved back in with them while the divorce…God.” Ginny fumbled at her seatbelt, her fingers numb and clumsy though the heater was on. “Can I…you don’t have to go in, you know. I just have to see if they left a note, or something. Anything.”

  “No ma’am.” He peered through the windshield, craning to look at the second-story windows. Searching for motion, probably. “You ain’t gonna let me and Juju sweep it, I bet, so you’ll go on in with us.”

  “Okay.” She reached for her purse, thought better of it. What on earth would she need it for?

  The walkie-talkie crackled, Juju and Lee repeating cryptic, half-familiar planning. Communication was key, they always said. The RV pulled forward to keep the driveway clear; Juju’s 4x4 pushed gently through the box hedge and onto the front lawn. Ginny opened her mouth to say something—but that didn’t matter, did it?

  Lawncare was not even on the list anymore, as Fran would say. Ginny reached for the door handle. Pulled her hand back.

  “Easy there,” Lee said. “Let me get out first, darlin.”

  Then do it, goddammit, and stop fucking around. “Okay.” She pulled her gloves on once more, pushing Traveller’s snout away with gentle fingers. The dog’s tail thwapped Lee’s arm, but he appeared not to notice, still studying the front of the house. Next would come him checking his gun, and then hopefully they could get out of the damn truck and find out what was inside. There had to be a note. Probably left on the kitchen counter, or on the fridge. Taped to the stainless steel, if she knew Dad.

  Mom would hate that. It leaves a mark.

  No it doesn’t, Dad would say. Scotch tape never leaves a mark.

  “Please,” Ginny whispered, barely aware of the word escaping her. “Oh, please.” Her knee hit the baseball bat tucked between the seat and her door, and she decided that was a good idea. Working it free took a few moments.

  “Easy, Ginny.” Lee finally glance
d at her, a tight smile not reaching his eyes. “Place is probably empty, but let’s be safe.”

  Fuck safe. I need to get in there.

  But she waited. What else could she do?

  The foyer was dark, snow spilling across slate tiles. Don’t drop an egg! Dad said, the smile lurking around his mouth. “Mom? Dad?” Ginny took a deep, frigid breath; her voice echoed. “Flo? Anyone?”

  “Stairs,” Lee said. Stairs climbed to the second story, the bedrooms and Dad’s study. Past the stairs to the left was the den and the exercise room; she could just see the gleam of stainless steel from the kitchen. Every appliance in the place was silvery. You can disinfect it, Mom always said. Stainless steel means painless clean.

  “Hang on, Ginny.” Juju didn’t lift his gun. His mouth was set, lips thinned and tense, and even the pompom atop his knitted cap looked businesslike.

  “Mom?” she called again. “Flo?”

  The living room opened on their right, frozen drapes creaking at the broken bay window. Pitiless snowlight poured past jagged frost-etched glass, and Juju stopped in the archway. “Oh, hell,” he said, softly, and Ginny’s heart leapt into her throat, the pounding echoing in her skull. “Ginny—”

  She pushed past him, clutching the baseball bat in nerveless fingers.

  At first, it all seemed terribly normal. Mom had replaced the couch again, this time in blue, and above the gas insert fireplace was her prized Piet Lor painting, bought at the gallery on Fifth Avenue during her fifth month pregnant with Ginny. I prayed for an easy birth, and you were, she would always say. You were my easy child.

  At least she had never told Flo that. If Ginny never quite measured up, at least she wasn’t actively troublesome. It was a thin comfort at best.

  Cold’s going to be hell on the canvas, Ginny thought, inconsequentially, and looked towards the bay window.

  The Tiffany lamps were knocked over, multicolored glass shattered and glowing. Her father’s reading chair was pushed aside, just a few degrees askew. The coffee table was swept clear, a star of breakage on the heavy glass top, and the drapes moved, creaking, creaking on an icy breeze.