It was now after 3:30 a.m. and Bella was running on adrenaline. She pushed at the door to her father's wing, but it wouldn't budge until she put her shoulder against it and then it only moved inch by inch. She knew what she'd find when she edged through the gap. A frail figure had been folded into the wall by her efforts leaving a trail of fluid to run under the door. Poor devil. What a way to go, she thought. Judging by the way his shirt and pants were neatly ironed, the little man, or his wife, had taken pride in his appearance and now he was nothing more than an obstruction in a hallway.
Her eyes moistened as every fiber of her being told her to flee this place, but her father was inside, and she was going to find him, whether he was dead or alive. At least her head was beginning to clear as the Advil began to kick in.
She passed three more slumped forms before she reached Al Berkovich's room. Her heart thumped in her chest as she hammered on the door. "Pop?"
Nothing.
She'd known he was dead, after all the devastation they'd seen on the way here. All those cars pulled over with silent forms in the driver's seat. The pastor at the church. The thug who'd tried to attack Maddie. The thug she'd killed. She'd killed a man.
What was she becoming?
What she needed to be.
And, right now, she needed to finish what she'd come here to do. She had to find her father. She knocked again. Still no answer. Pulling the bunch of keys from her pocket, she found the one with the "World's Greatest Grandpa" fob (Maddie had given it to Pop and he'd given it to Bella) and pushed it into the lock.
It was dark inside, so she flicked on the hallway light and crept into the living room expecting, at any moment, to come across his lifeless form. The couch was unoccupied, the TV off, the place entirely silent.
She snapped around as she heard a loud moan coming from behind her. In her aching, exhausted, adrenalized mind, she half expected to see a zombie come lumbering out of her father's bedroom. After the night she'd had, she'd hardly be surprised. But nothing moved. Then she heard it again and this time she recognized it. She laughed aloud as she felt her body relax and stepped across to her father's bedroom.
He was lying on the bed looking for all the world like he'd recently departed from this life. And then he snored again. She shook him gently and smiled as he came around.
"Sorry to wake you," she said, "but your taxi service is here."
The old man yawned and then sat up. "You took your time, didn't you? I waited up, but then all the noise stopped and I felt sleepy. Figured you had more important things to do than to come when your old father called."
"Don't be ridiculous," Bella replied. She helped him out of bed and went to fetch his shoes. He was otherwise fully dressed and he'd packed a small suitcase. "Coming to stay, Pop?"
"Well, I'm not fixin' to wait in this mausoleum while they sort things out, that's for sure."
"Pop, do you have a weapon?"
The old man looked puzzled. "Course I do. Just a little Smith and Wesson. Why?"
"Everything's gone loco these past few hours. It's been tough getting here and I guess it's going to be even harder to get home."
Berkovich nodded sagely. "I knew it would happen one day. Like a house of cards, all it takes is one breath of wind and it all comes tumblin' down."
He had indeed predicted the end of the world many times, Bella thought. Every time something new came along to change the way life was lived—from smartphones to augmented reality to wearables—he'd seen it as just another point of failure for a civilization becoming reliant on too many threads. They'd all laughed and nodded, patronizing the cynical old man. And yet here he stood, alive, in a building full of the dead. The difference between them and him? He was defiantly analog.
They stood in the hallway. "I want to check on Jeremiah," he said, quietly.
"Are you sure, Pop? He's likely dead." She could hardly believe how callously she said the words.
"You checked on me," he responded. "And he ain't got no family."
All Bella wanted to do was get back to the kids, but she couldn't leave without her father. "Come on then, but we have to be quick. Jake and Maddie are in the car."
They halted outside the next door along the hallway. Al parked his wheeled suitcase and fumbled in his pocket for his bunch of keys before turning one in the lock. The lights were on and Bella could hear the sound of the TV in the living room. "Let me go in, Pop," she said.
To her relief, there was no one inside. A news report was showing footage of people rioting in cities across the country. Hospitals were being targeted as desperate people sought medical aid—both for those who were past the point of helping and for themselves. No one knew what was causing this sudden killing; it was as if Death himself was sweeping his scythe across the continent.
She opened the bedroom door to find the room empty of everything but the slight aroma of stale urine. There was no one in the bathroom, so she went back to the living room, turned off the TV and lights and returned to the door.
"He's not inside," she said. "I guess he got taken away."
Al shook his head sadly. "He was an old fool, but I liked him. Now come on, we can't leave those kinder outside on their own."
He began to move at pace along the corridor, dragging his suitcase behind him. Bella rolled her eyes and followed.
Despite the need for haste, Al insisted on stopping beside every slumped body, saying a short prayer and telling Bella something about the person whose spirit had fled. She knew better than to interrupt or hurry him. This was his way of coping with the enormity of what had happened. He'd come across someone he'd once known as a living human being and would spend thirty seconds complaining about them, and then he'd mumble a few words, bid farewell and move on.
"Otherwise, they're just husks," he said as they opened the door to the lobby. "Someone has to remember that they were people. Even Mrs. Ratzinger."
Bella waited for her eyes to adjust to the relative darkness outside as she waited for her father. She couldn't yet see the car and she took that as a good sign—if it was invisible to her, the kids would hopefully have remained unmolested.
"At last!" Jake said as he jumped out at them. He ran past his mother and into the arms of Al. "Grandpa!"
"Hello, my boy," the old man responded, before opening his embrace so Maddie could join them.
"I'm fine, thanks for asking," muttered Bella without any real venom. "Come on, let's get out of here."
Jake helped Al lift his suitcase into the trunk. "You've come down in the world," the old man said as he climbed into the passenger seat. "Has that good for nothing stopped his alimony?"
"This isn't my car, Dad," Bella said, starting the car up and pushing the shift.
"Oh, so you're a car thief now, are you?"
Maddie leaned forward from the back seat. "No, Grandpa, the man was dead. He was a preacher."
"You stole a car from a man of God?"
With great care, Bella steered the car back onto the main road out of town and headed back toward Baytown. She knew her father was displacing his fear with mock outrage, but she let him squabble with an increasingly infuriated Maddie. At least it kept their attention from the journey.
Things had gotten worse, much worse, since their trip north and Bella had to pick her way between vehicles. One truck had jackknifed, blocking the entire road, and she was forced into the car-park of a business beside the road. It was a memorial mason. How appropriate.
She saw the unmistakable glow of fire on the skyline, but she was almost upon it before she realized that it was the gas station where she'd shot that man. A little of her was relieved that the evidence had gone up in smoke, but she half expected to see Earl stepping out of the oily curtain surrounding the station, intent on retribution. There was no sign of the gang. They'd probably been responsible for torching the place. She only hoped the girl in the kiosk had gotten away.
They passed more fires as they headed into the outskirts of Baytown. It looked as thou
gh someone was deliberately setting light to vehicles, presumably through some twisted sense of fun.
"Slow down, Isabella!" Al said.
He was pointing off to the right where a sedan had driven off the road. It was beneath a streetlight and, in front of the car lay two bodies. One was wearing a military uniform.
"We can't stop," Bella said. "Haven't you seen? There's hundreds along this road."
"He's one of our boys," Al responded. "We need to check. Stop the car, Isabella. Just for a minute."
Sighing at the futility and danger of what they were about to do, Bella pulled in, just as the body began to move.
The old man was out of the car as soon as it stopped. Bella gave a cry and grabbed her gun. "Dad!" By the time she reached him, Al had turned the soldier onto his back.
He was a lean man in his mid-thirties. The badge over his left shirt pocket said Texas State Guard. His eyes stared fixedly at the night above him, and then turned to meet her gaze.
"Says here your name's Woods. Like Tiger?"
The man reached up and grabbed Al by the arm.
"Don't worry, son, we'll help you." The old man looked up at his daughter. "He's got a wound to his back, we need to get him to a hospital."
"We can't. I saw on the TV. They're a war zone."
"Then we take him home."
Bella sighed. She looked down at the man as he let go of her father and fell back into unconsciousness. She had enough on her hands with Al and the kids and she didn't know what she was going to find when she got home. She'd locked up and shut the gates, but she hadn't expected to find such widespread carnage outside. If it hadn't been for her father, they'd have passed on by and written off the figures in the road as just more victims. The one beneath the soldier—a woman in her twenties—was certainly dead. But there was no question of leaving him here now. She was no medic, but they would take him home and, if he survived the journey, they'd do their best by him.
It took all four of them to bundle the soldier into the middle of the back seat. Blood had spread across his jacket from beneath the shoulder-blade, though it didn't look as though it was flowing much now. Perhaps because he had little enough left. Bella touched the back of her hand to his pallid forehead; it was wet and cold.
Al sat beside the soldier, swapping with Jake who now rode shotgun.
"Stay with us Tiger," he said as the man drifted in and out of consciousness.
Bella put her foot down and, mile by mile, they made their way back home.
Pulling up to the house was like waking from a bizarre nightmare. Jake tapped in the combination code and the gate opened as they approached. A floodlight flicked on to illuminate the drive and the house looked exactly as it had when they'd left it. She'd inherited a paranoid streak from her parents and so had insisted on a secure house when Solly and she had been looking for somewhere to settle down. It was surrounded by a man-high brick wall that was topped by spiked iron railings and covered on all sides by CCTV. She let out a long breath as the gate clanged shut behind them. For the first time since they'd left, she could relax.
Except they hadn't all made it back. Todd's body was lying in a car half way between here and Mont Belvieu. She should have been overwhelmed with grief, but she searched her heart and found her emotional well completely drained. She had nothing left. All she could do was deal with things as they were. And her head was still throbbing.
"Come on Isabella," her father called. "Let's get this boy inside."
She snapped out of her inner monologue and put the soldier's arm over her shoulder. With Jake's help, they dragged him into the house, but it took all four of them to get him upstairs and into the guest bedroom.
Bella removed his jacket and shirt as he lay unconscious on his front, before taking a look at the wound. It was a bullet, but there was no sign of it exiting on the other side of his chest. Odd. He'd been wearing no armor, so there was nothing stopping it from going straight through and killing him instantly.
She cleaned the wound with some boiled water and then took her father's flashlight and shone it into the neat hole punched into his skin. Bella could see metal, but it wasn't the bullet. Rolling him gently onto his back, she lifted his wrist. The display of his BonesWare was black. By a freak chance, the bullet had hit and shattered his implant. He'd bled heavily, perhaps too heavily, but, for now, the implant had saved his life.
"Well, who'd have believed it," the old man said. "Those infernal lumps of metal did have a use after all."
She gave him a tired smile as she tucked the blankets under the soldier's chin. She couldn't do much other than keep him warm and give him fluids if he woke up. For now, however, she needed sleep as she'd never needed it before.
"I'll sit by him. I've already slept a little," Al said as his daughter got up.
"Thanks Pops," she replied. She turned at the door. "I'm glad you're here."
"Me too, liebling. Me too."
She watched her father bring a chair to the side of the bed and settle down to his vigil. She smiled again.
Then the lights went out.
Chapter 7
Solly yelled as a stabbing pain gripped his calf. He reached down but overbalanced and rolled off the couch and onto the floor. He lay there groaning as he came around properly. It was light. He'd slept all night. He could feel the grungy carpet under his legs. He had no pants on.
Of all the things that might have freaked him out—memories of a night spent dodging the end of the world, for example—it was the fact that he'd woken up half naked that was at the forefront of his mind right now.
He sat up with his back against the couch. His left leg had been bandaged and he wasn't wearing the same briefs he'd had on yesterday—he knew this because he didn't make a habit of putting them on back to front. His stomach rumbled, his mouth was dry, and he had the mother of all headaches brewing. He decided to shelve all his questions until he had the energy to answer them, so he pulled himself back onto the couch and fell immediately asleep again.
He couldn't tell how long he'd been lying there when he woke up. It was still daylight which meant, on these short winter days, that he can't have been asleep for more than eight hours at the most. He rubbed the residual soreness from his calf and groaned as he sat upright. Every part of him ached, but most of the real pain came from the part of his left thigh that was covered by the bandage. He twisted his leg a little and then winced as he caught sight of the oval shaped patch of red on the far side. How had that happened? Who had put the bandage on?
Then, like a searchlight finding its target, he remembered.
"Mona!" he croaked. "Mona!"
No response.
He hauled himself up and hobbled, stiff legged, to the kitchen door, leaning on the wall as he went. It looked well-ordered inside—far too tidy to have been as Solly had left it—though he was puzzled by the pile of cans on the table. It looked as though Mona had emptied the closet of food and organized it into types. Very odd.
"Mona!" he called again, as he made his painful, exhausted way from the kitchen door along to the bedroom. He opened the door and saw her there, lying in the bed, duvet clasped under her chin, looking as comfortable and peaceful as it was possible to imagine. But it was the peace of the dead. He could see it in an instant. There was a stillness to her that couldn't possibly be mere sleep and her face had an unmistakable gray lifelessness to it.
But still, he had to be sure, so he gently touched her forehead. Cold. The woman had died in his bed during her sleep. Judging by the look of contentment on her face, she hadn't felt a thing. Small mercies.
He sat down next to her on the bed, utterly numb. His mind was still foggy, perhaps from the drinks the night before at Gabe's. The night before everything changed. He cast his mind back to their journey here. How he'd met Mona in the subway, how she'd seemed timid at first but had shown herself to have guts when it came to it. How she'd saved him during the knife fight.
He touched his bandaged leg again. He must h
ave been cut during the fight without knowing it. Just a glancing blow that had leaked blood; he hadn't noticed while they were out in the cold and wet, but when they'd gotten inside and warmed up, the blood had begun to flow freely. Mona had patched him up, removed his pants and then gone to bed to die.
His stomach rumbled again. He needed to deal with Mona, but he needed food and drink first. Perhaps that would clear the fog from his mind so he could function. So he could make sense of what had happened.
It took a herculean effort to make it back to the kitchen. He felt as though he'd aged fifty years in a single night. His legs were so weak, his right leg cramped and his left sore as the bandage rubbed on the wound. Twice the dizziness almost overwhelmed him, and he was forced to lean against the wall to steady himself before moving on again.
Finally, he was at the sink filling a mug with water. The cold liquid splashed down his throat and immediately sharpened his senses. Coffee next. He didn't have the energy for anything other than instant, so he flicked the switch on the kettle and stood, holding onto the kitchen counter, waiting for it to warm up. Nothing happened.
He looked down at the digital readout on the front of the stove. Nothing. The microwave. Nothing. So, the power was out. Just as he thought this, he noticed the cold. The apartment heating was powered by electricity and the windows weren't well insulated. He could feel a breeze play over his bare legs.
He had to get warm. But to get warm he needed energy and he didn't have any means of heating food. He shambled over to the table and looked through the cans. Rice pudding, that would have to do. He sat down, lifted the ring pull, grabbed a spoon from the drawer and dug in. As soon as he started eating, he realized just how famished he'd been and the can was gone in seconds.
Solly made his painful way back to the living room. He needed to contact Bella. His smartphone was on the table, but the battery had died. There was no dial tone when he picked up the house phone. He was on the other side of the country, desperate to know whether his family was alive or dead and with no way to find out. No way other than to go there himself. But that was for another day.
The Long Night Box Set Page 6