"How's the soldier?" Al asked as she came back into the kitchen.
"He's looking better. More color in his cheeks. He'll want to start helping out today, I reckon."
The old man smiled. "I reckon you're right, and we could do with another pair of hands."
"One hand," Bella corrected. "And we mustn't let him overdo it. What's the latest on the generator?"
Al shook his head, "No more than a gallon in the tank."
"And the batteries?"
"Close to full. I'm about to turn the thing off."
Solly hadn't seen the need for a generator but, once he'd been persuaded, he'd decided that they should also install a set of fast-charging lithium batteries so that, in the event of a power cut, they could run the generator to charge the batteries and then use them to power the house. That way, the generator would only have to run for a few hours a day. Not everything in the house could be powered by batteries, but it meant they could have the lights on as needed (though with drapes drawn after dark) and check the TV and radio channels for any broadcasts. The generator was run in the morning to heat up the house and water tank. It also powered the stove, microwave and toaster so all cooking was done before noon. Excess power was channeled into the battery array. It was a clever system, but then Solly was a clever man.
She missed him. Oddly enough, she'd hardly given him a second thought when he was working in New York and the world was still turning, but since that night, since hearing his voice, she'd wanted nothing more than to see him again. She knew that the chances were slim to say the least, but she clung to the hope that he was alive. He would come for them, if not for her sake then certainly for the children. For all his faults, he loved his kids.
And what would he have to say to her about them? It had been her choice to take them along when she went for her father. If she'd left them at home, they wouldn't have witnessed the horrors of the road. Maddie wouldn't have been attacked by that man at the gas station and neither would have witnessed their mother becoming a killer.
She'd tried talking to them about it, but Maddie had retreated into her books and Jacob was pretending he was fine.
"Finished," Jake said as he and Maddie came into the kitchen and sat down beside Al.
"What's the verdict?" Bella asked, taking the clipboard from Maddie.
"We can get by for a couple more days, but we're nearly out of food," Maddie said.
They'd been conducting an inventory of the house provisions and had created a shopping list for the expedition they all knew had to come soon. Their focus had been on getting through the first days and making sure Nathan survived. Now they had to look a little further into the future.
It had been pretty quiet outside over the past week. They'd had some visitors, though in most cases they were strangers simply making their way along the road and checking each place they passed in case it contained supplies they could raid. Bella's house was surrounded by six-foot-high brick walls with iron railings on top which was more than enough to put casual intruders off.
She knew that, once the softer targets had been emptied, their house would come under more determined attack. They were armed and took turns watching the perimeter from the upstairs bedrooms, but she hated the idea that they'd become prisoners in their own home. Better that than out on the streets, though.
Her plan was to drive to the nearby Walmart. It seemed ridiculous since it was such an obvious target but judging by how few people remained and how huge their stock levels were, she reckoned she could at least scavenge enough for her needs from the detritus left by looters. All she cared about right now was getting out and back with a week's supplies in the trunk.
"Right, well, I suppose it'd better be today," Bella said as she scanned the list, mentally removing the items like marshmallows and soda that might be considered essentials to a teenager.
"I'll ride shotgun," Jake said.
"You will not," Bella snapped.
"You can't go on your own," Al said. "I'll come with you."
Bella shook her head. "You need to stay here and protect the house. I'll be okay. Don't worry."
"Are you crazy, Mom? You need someone to watch your back!" Maddie said.
"No, I need to know you're safe at home. The last thing I want is to have to worry about your safety as well as my own."
Bella realized she'd raised her voice and sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. Of course I'd like to have company, but none of you can come."
As she spoke, she noticed Al's glance turning to the kitchen door. She turned to see Nathan standing there, dressed in the fatigue pants he'd worn when he arrived and a shirt and jacket that had belonged to Solly. They hung loosely on him as if he'd lost twenty pounds. "I'm ready when you are," he said.
Bella inched the car out of the drive and onto the road, then waited to make sure that the batteries had enough power to close the gates behind her. It was the first time she'd been outside the house in a week and it might just as well have been a year. Garbage littered the street as plastic bags floated along, blown by a sharp breeze from the coast.
The road itself was navigable enough. Most of her neighbors had, it seemed, stayed at home and were presumably still there, dead or alive. But everything changed when she reached the highway.
"Good god," Nathan muttered. Vehicles lay nose to tail at the junction. It was as if aliens had chosen the rush hour to abduct the whole of humanity, beaming them up and leaving their cars behind where they waited in line.
"It's okay," Bella said. "All we've got to do is get across the road and along the side for a few hundred yards, then there's a side-street that heads toward Walmart. It's a rat-run everyone around here uses when the highway is busy."
"I'll see if there's a way through," Nathan said as he climbed out of the car.
She watched him head off onto the road before returning almost immediately.
He poked his head through the driver's side window. "No chance," he said. "I'm going to have to move some of them."
"We'll go another way," she responded. "You can't risk opening your wound up again."
He shrugged as he straightened up. "We need food," he said. "Wait until I've got a complete path through before you move."
Nathan walked over to the nearest car, a silver Nissan Saloon, and pulled the passenger door open. He jumped back, hand over his mouth and knelt down behind the car, vomiting his breakfast onto the tarmac.
After a few moments, he recovered enough to stand up and flip the lid of the trunk. He rummaged around and found a strip of material—a woman's scarf, perhaps—that he wrapped around his mouth and nose. She could see him drawing in a deep breath before plunging his hand over the passenger seat and pulling on the handbrake to disengage it. Beyond him sat a dark shape that didn't move.
She got out to help him push the vehicle back until it hit the one behind it.
"You should stay in the car," he said.
"Give it a rest, Prince Charming," she responded. "I'm not sitting there watching you do all the work, especially not one-handed."
He stood up and judged the gap they'd made. "You'll get through there," he said. "So, do you want to open the next car up?"
Desperately, she tried to extricate herself from the logical hole she'd dug.
"Only kidding. Leave it to me," he said with a smile.
Some of the cars had been abandoned and these were easy to deal with. The worst moment came when Nathan opened a car containing a mother and her young children. The woman had evidently died first, and the children had followed her hours or days later, trapped inside the vehicle.
"Nearly done," Nathan said. It had taken an hour to clear a path that almost crossed the road. "I'll get this last one, you bring the car through."
As she reached the car, a shape stepped out from behind it.
"Hello little miss." He was an older man in a stetson and sheepskin jacket. He hefted a shotgun against his shoulder. "No need to get antsy. Keep your hands out of your pockets if you don't mind.
Now, in the car. Your friend has cleared a path, so let's use it."
As she stepped toward him, he reached into her pocket and pulled out her handgun. "You smell nice," he said. "Someone's got a working shower, then."
He, on the other hand, smelled as though he hadn't washed in a week. Rancid sweat tickled her nose as she got into the driver's seat, aware that he had her covered with his shotgun. Nathan was out of sight on the other side of the road, oblivious to the hijacking.
"Now, let's you and me go do some shopping," her captor said. "The name's Hank. Do as I say and you'll be safe enough. We might even have some fun together."
Bella didn't need to ask what he meant by that, she could see the hunger in his face.
She turned on the ignition and set off through the gap they'd created with such effort. Hank ducked down in the passenger seat but kept his gun trained on her. "When I tell you to put your foot down, you do it or I'll blow a hole in you that you ain't gonna fix. Now!"
Bella stabbed down on the gas and headed for the gap Nathan had just created. He threw himself backwards and she caught a momentary flash of his shocked face as she sped past him. He must think I've abandoned him, she thought.
"Now, get us to somewhere we can find supplies. Then, maybe, I'll let you go," Hank said as he sat up in the seat.
Bella had no choice. She drove along the roadside until she could turn onto Creek Road. She imagined Nathan watching her head off into the distance, powerless to follow.
They found utter devastation at the Walmart. It looked as though a large bomb had been set off inside; shattered windows framed in black had flung their glass out onto parking lot. There was no sign of movement.
Hank had explained, with no small amount of perverse pleasure at being in control of the whole situation, that he'd been sheltering in a small RV at the junction when he'd seen Bella approaching. He'd watched them clear a path and had intended to just follow them since he had also been looking for supplies, but then he'd seen her, and other ideas had occurred to him.
She parked a hundred yards from the store and they walked in, their shoes crunching over glass fragments and other debris. It was obvious that the store had been engulfed by fire.
"We ain't gonna find nothin' here," Hank said. "Let's go look elsewhere."
Bella shook her head. "We should look, at least. If everyone thinks it's all burned out, they might not have checked. There'll be a stock room, maybe that escaped the fire."
"Oh, you're a clever one, that's for sure," Hank said, giving her a poke of his shotgun as if to remind her who was in charge.
It was a faint enough hope, but if Nathan was going to catch up with them, it would be here. Of course, he didn't know the back-roads to the store, but at least he knew where she had been headed. She only hoped he hadn't concluded she'd abandoned him. Though they'd spent a week together, he'd only been fully conscious for a couple of days.
It all depended on delaying Hank for as long as possible. There was one obvious way to do this, but she wasn't that desperate. So, they stepped through a broken window and into the dark interior.
She was no expert in explosives, but it looked as though whatever had smashed the windows had gone off in the checkout area. The fire had started here and spread backwards and out. They only had the natural light coming in through the gaps where the windows had been and the flashlight she'd brought in the car. Hank had seized it and was using it like a searchlight to find any undamaged stock.
The further back in the store they went, the less the damage, but aside from some occasional tin cans, there was little they could scavenge. It was now entirely dark and Hank was becoming frustrated when the flashlight found the entrance to the stockroom. It was closed.
The door opened easily which meant it had almost certainly already been forced and the place looted. Sure enough, the flashlight showed that the shelving was mainly empty, with boxes flung across the floor.
He gave a grunt of frustration.
"I'm sure we can find something we can use," Bella said, keen to keep him looking.
Suddenly, he switched off the flashlight and she felt his hands on her. "Oh, I think I've found exactly what I want right here," Hank said.
Chapter 12
Despite his exhaustion, Solly couldn't get to sleep. The wheels of his mind spun as he lay in his sleeping bag, staring upwards into the black night. The wound on his leg ached. He'd checked beneath the bandage before setting off: the angry red had faded, but a day on his feet seemed to have reopened it a little.
A cult? Yes, as soon as the mysterious man had said the words, he knew that this was why he had that creeping feeling of discomfort. It felt like a society being built for the benefit of men—and of one man in particular.
Finally, after what had seemed like an endless night, his mind gave in and he fell asleep only to be woken by Ross seemingly moments later. "Come on, it's breakfast."
Getting to his feet, Solly rubbed his sore leg and followed the others, Ross at his side. The makeshift canteen was empty except for three or four women who stood behind a long counter. The men were moving along the counter while the women added food items to their plates without, Solly noticed, making eye contact.
When he got to the end of the counter, Solly looked around to see that the stranger was at the end of a table, with spaces to either side. He'd put his tray down and was just going to sit when the man hissed at him. "Not here. You must not be seen with me. I will find you later!"
Solly lifted himself back up and made a sideways gesture with his head to Ross and the two of them found spaces at another table.
The men ate quickly, and Solly was one of the last to finish. As he was getting up, women began filing in from another door. He deliberately slowed down his exit so he could catch a glimpse of Janice. There she was, head down, near the front of a line that moved silently toward the counter. The serving dishes had been swapped for a couple of large pots and Solly watched as oatmeal was ladled into each bowl. No bacon for the women, then. As he made to leave, he turned to look back at Janice. She glanced up momentarily and he saw that her eyes were red and her face wet. She saw him and tears began to flow down her cheeks.
Solly barely knew her, and yet he understood, in that moment, that he would risk anything to get her out of this place.
On their return to the bar, Solly and Ross were assigned to a cleaning detail that was working its way through the administration offices lining the back of the theater.
"These are gonna be accommodations," said the supervisor, a Chinese American called Xi. "We're gonna clear out the old furniture and blackout the windows so's no one knows we're in here."
They stopped outside a closed door. "You're the new guys, so you get to go first."
"No one's been in here?" Solly said.
Xi smiled. "You got it. Call it a right of initiation into the brotherhood."
"I'll go first," he said to Ross and, having sucked in a lungful of fresh air, he turned the handle and opened the door.
Dust danced in a beam of light that had found its way into the office from between the buildings behind the theater. In the middle of the room sat a tatty desk. No body. Solly breathed out and then sneezed as he drew in the stale air.
"This one's gonna be a breeze, Sol," Xi said as he surveyed the little room. "I reckon we'll have it done in time for the noon meal."
In fact, Solly and Ross did all the work. Xi excused himself by claiming that he had to check up on the other offices, but when Solly did catch sight of him, he was standing by the window in an empty room dragging on a cigarette. When he heard the two of them as they carried the desk toward the stairs, he smiled and waved.
Back at the now empty office, Solly examined the window. It was as old as the building, 1990s at a guess, and it used a simple latch to lock it. "Look out for Xi," he whispered to Ross who was enjoying the view.
"Why?"
Solly waved his arm at the door. "Just do it! I'll explain later."
Ross
sloped off and stuck his head through the doorway.
"Not like that!" Solly hissed. "Just listen out for him!" Oy, kids, he thought.
He turned back to the latch and carefully lifted it. No problem so far. He did the same with the one on the other side and then gently pushed at the window. It was hinged at the top, so it should have swung out. No joy. He put some weight behind it, but still it wouldn't budge. He wondered how long it had been since that window had been opened. Probably not since air conditioning had been retrofitted. Maybe twenty years?
Ross coughed and Solly swung around to see him moving away from the door. Xi was coming. Solly slipped the latches back and, as he turned he noticed something just outside. A fire escape landing. He didn't have time to see more, as Xi's smiling face appeared in the doorframe.
"Ah, you have finished, I see," he said. "Well done. And it is time for our noontime communion. A good first morning. The pastor will be pleased."
Solly left the room with one final glance back at the window, his tired mind grinding through the gears as he worked on an escape plan.
Xi stopped them at the bottom of the flight of metal steps that led to the canteen. "What's happened here?" he was pointing at a bright white pool of liquid at the foot of the stairs. As Solly reached the bottom, he could see a paint pot on its side. Xi looked up at him.
"Will you clean this up? I have important matters to discuss with the pastor."
Solly sighed inwardly and gestured to Ross as Xi made a swift exit. "Come on, let's find some rags."
"I knew he'd get you to clean it up." The stranger from the night before appeared out of the shadows from beneath the steps. "Lazy, like so many of our so-called leaders."
Once he'd drawn breath after the initial shock, Solly held out his hand. "I'm Solly, and this is Ross."
The Long Night Box Set Page 10