"We don't mean you any harm," he hissed. "Please, help us."
She turned to face them both. "This ain't the way into town. If you're newcomers, you gotta take the main road from the west."
"Do you know what happened to the mayor?" Solly asked.
The woman looked from one to the other. "So, you are from around here? Been away? Well, the old mayor is back."
"What do you mean?"
She was examining them closely as she spoke. "Tell me first what you thought of Mayor Kennedy."
In for a penny. "She was a psycho," Solly responded, watching as the old woman's features relaxed. "Now, what happened? Where's Bella Masters?"
"Who wants to know?"
"I'm her husband, Solly Masters."
The woman looked puzzled. "No, that can't be right. She's hangin' out with that fella. The one with the skull tattoo."
"Okay. I'm her ex-husband," Solly sighed.
A smile broke the woman's face and twenty years seemed to drop from her. "Now that's kinda sweet. And who's this? Your new girl?"
"No!" Vivian erupted. "We're mates. He's old enough to be my father!"
The woman shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time. Won't be the last," she said, before turning back to Solly. "To answer your question, the old mayor is bein' held in the supplies warehouse with the others she was caught with, or at least those who haven't turned against her and gone to work for the old witch. I said at the time, I said she should've hanged Kennedy as soon as she caught her. Soft-hearted, that's your wife's trouble."
Solly smiled.
"Ex-wife, I should say."
The smile disappeared. "What's going to happen to them?"
And now the years returned to the old woman's face. "They're building the scaffold now, my boy. If you want to help your Bella, you'd best do it quick for they're to hang soon."
Chapter 16
"That's insane!"
Vivian paced around the little parking lot next to the fishing pond, as Solly leaned against the Humvee watching her let off steam.
"I don't like it any more than you do, but if you've got a better idea, I'm all ears."
She stopped in front of him, hands on hips, strands of curly hair that had escaped from her military cap framing her round, chestnut face, wearing an expression of indignant frustration.
"How about I go instead of you?"
Solly shook his head. "You don't know what Bella looks like, and you can hardly ask for directions to the former mayor." It was a weak excuse, but Solly wasn't about to have his plans changed now that he'd decided on his course. Bella had often accused him of inflexibility, never understanding why he reacted so badly when anything unexpected happened, however trivial. Well, the Long Night had gone a long way to curing that particular foible, but he retained a stubborn streak and wasn't backing down in face of Vivian's anger.
"So, you're just gonna walk into the town, find that warehouse and then I'm suppose' to find you. Am I right?"
"Sure, that's about it. I'm taking a smoke grenade. As soon as you get my call, you need to get to me fast." He sighed as she glared at him. "Look, we can't just drive into town in a Humvee and cruise around looking for this warehouse, can we? We know the Lee Corporation's here, and, in any case, we'd attract too much attention. I'll get myself in position, then you come rescue me, rescue us. I'm relying on you, Viv."
He watched her face soften as she realized she couldn't come up with a better plan. If they'd known exactly where the warehouse was, they could have gone in all guns blazing in the hope of being in and out before the Lee Corporation, or local law enforcement, could stop them. But though the woman they'd met the previous day had told them roughly where it was, they were strangers in a strange town. He would have to go in alone.
Solly walked at a steady pace along a narrow country lane, eyes scanning the trees and bushes for any sign of people. Tiny houses in big fields lined the road, giving way to larger ranch houses with long driveways covered in deep piles of rotting leaves. No one had been here for a long time, that much was obvious, and Solly relaxed his guard so much that he had to force himself to keep moving forward as quickly as possible. It was a bright sunny day in early spring and he could have been the only human alive.
The burned-out gas station erased this brief, superficial contentment. The pumps were blackened shells surrounded by blobs of plastic that had solidified in multicolored pools. Beyond, the remains of the shop, all broken glass and twisted metal, sat open to the sky, a monument to the impotence of civilization in the after days.
Solly took the next right after the gas station, as the woman had directed. There was still no sign of recent human activity, but he could sense that he was getting closer to the inhabited part of the town as the houses were getting closer together, though no less disheveled. Rusting bikes and toppled basketball hoops, collapsed swing sets and broken windows. Somehow, Solly found this even more depressing than the dead streets of New York because it reminded him much more keenly of his house in Texas. He thought of Maddie, waiting nervously for him to return, and he thought of Bella. What was she thinking?
One thing was certain—the Bella he'd last seen on his last visit home was no more the woman he'd known than he was the Solly she'd divorced. It was impossible to bend his mind to accept a reality in which she was the mayor of a town, and even less that she'd headed a coup against the previous incumbent. He half-expected to break into the warehouse to find that he was rescuing another person called Bella Masters, and yet he knew this was ridiculous. The apocalypse had changed her as much as it had changed him, it seemed, and he wondered what that would mean for the two of them.
Movement. Solly put his hand on the gun hidden inside his coat, but breathed out again as an elderly dog emerged from a hedge and walked arthritically in his direction. Solly reached into his pack and pulled out a stick of jerky.
"I wouldn't give him none of that, if I were you." A man, who looked as old, in human years, as the dog, approached from a gate farther along the hedge. "He sits there and waits for someone to walk by, then he plays his 'I'm a poor little doggie' card in hopes of a treat. He ain't hungry, not really. But he does have a delicate gut. I'm Chester, by the way. Pleased to meet a fellow dog lover."
Solly got up, ignoring the disappointed expression on the mutt's long, gray-tinged face. "Solly," he said, extending his hand.
"Stranger here?"
Solly nodded. "Yeah, just passing through."
Chester looked behind himself before leaning in close. "You might just want to reconsider that, friend. All of a sudden, Elizabeth isn't so welcoming as it was, especially for folks coming from the north. How did you get here?"
"I came through the forest," Solly said. "Beautiful place, though not much to eat. But what's wrong here? I'd heard this was a good town to head for."
Chester lowered his voice even further. "It was, but we've had a change of administration and the new folks have closed off the town. And there's a curfew, so even those who was here before can't go about their business no more. But I didn't say any of that, d'you hear me?"
"I hear you," Solly said with a grim smile. "All the same, I think I'll take my chances. I can be pretty inconspicuous when I want to be."
Eyes narrowing, Chester regarded Solly with a mixture of suspicion and admiration. "Hmm. Seems to me there's more to this than just a stranger walkin' along a lane outside my house. But," he said, as Solly went to respond, "you don't need to tell me nothin' you haven't a mind to. I'm a pretty good judge of character and Finn seems to have taken to you. Maybe you're here to stir things up a little, but whether you are or not, I'll give you a little help. Follow me."
He lived in a ranch house made of white painted wood that had been kept spotlessly clean and inside it was like an oasis of calm, or a shrine to the 1970s, depending on the viewer's taste.
Chester went to a cabinet in the hallway and opened a drawer. "Here," he said, his hand emerging with a small sheaf of green bills. "I traded for th
ese, but don't have much use for them."
They were dollar bills, but each had an ornate letter E stamped on it. "What are they?"
"Elizabeth Dollars—Lizzies—our local currency. If you get into a sticky situation, show them these."
"Bribery?"
He shrugged. "Maybe, but it's also good evidence that you're from the town. These notes are pretty new, so only townsfolk have them. And a dollar goes a long way in Elizabeth, so you should be able to get whatever you need in the market with these."
"I can't accept them," Solly said, attempting to hand them back.
Chester shook his head and raised his hands. "Take it! I told you, I don't need much. Me and Finn see to each other and we got plenty of supplies laid down."
Solly thanked him. "Why do you live out here on your own?"
"Because it's my home, Solly. I lived here for fifty years before Judgement Day. Got married, raised a family. All gone now." The old man shook his head sadly. "No, I'll stay here. But you go find what you're lookin' for, son, and if you can cause a little mischief in the town, then I'll be all the happier."
Solly trudged along, Lizzies in his pocket, thinking about the old man and his dog. Judgement Day, he'd called it. Well, if that was true, the human race had committed some pretty serious crimes. But it was just short-hand for something most people couldn't explain. There had, after all, been no justice in Judgement Day. Too many good folks had died, too many bad people had survived.
As he walked, he began to encounter people going about their routine business. Most of them walked with eyes cast down, determined, it seemed, to get to their destination as quickly as possible without seeing anything.
And so, as he entered more urbanized areas, he was ignored, and yet felt more and more as though, if anyone did look up, he'd be known for a stranger instantly.
The old woman had told him to look for a Walmart and, just as he was beginning to wonder whether he'd taken a wrong turn, he saw it. He knew it was guarded, and, in his mind's eye, he saw Landon again standing in the booth at the barrier of that depot near the farmhouse. Another good person lost.
Solly took a side road so he could skirt around the Walmart. The warehouse, he'd been told, was just beyond it beside a park. As he passed the rear of the grocery store, he found a small copse of trees and decided to stop for a comfort break and to eat something before scouting the warehouse.
As he leaned against a tree, he heard voices approaching. Three men were walking along the path he'd just gotten off. He snuck a look. A deputy and two cops.
"Now just you shut yer mouth, Jonus Suggs," one of the police officers was saying as he jabbed a finger at the deputy. "You cut a deal when they let you out, and you can't go back on it now."
"I ain't talkin' about goin' back on nothin'," Suggs was saying. "I just ain't happy that the mayor's gonna hang."
The other cop joined in. "She ain't the mayor no more, and don't you forget it! And what did you think was gonna happen to her? Kennedy's not a pussy cat like she was, she's gonna get rid of all troublemakers just like that. So, you'd better make sure you ain't one of them when the reckonin' comes."
"Well, I just hope I'm not on duty that day. I sure don't want to see it happen."
Solly's heart was racing as the voices passed his hiding place. One of these three had clearly been taken with Bella, but was then released when he changed sides. So, he was a potential ally, if also an unreliable one. If Solly could surprise them and disable his colleagues, then this Suggs character could be very useful. He would know exactly where Bella was being held.
These thoughts raced through his mind in moments and he found himself leaping out from cover.
"Raise your hands!"
The three spun around. One went for his sidearm. "Last warning!" Solly yelled. The man's hand lifted into the air.
"The mayor will have your guts for pantyhose," one of them said.
"You, Suggs, you know my wife, I believe."
The man in the deputy's uniform went pale, his eyes wide in panic. "I never touched her, I swear. I never knowed she was your wife."
For a moment, Solly didn't know how to respond. "Who are you talking about?"
Suggs blinked, realizing he might have spoken too quickly. "I dunno, who did you mean?"
"Bella Masters."
"What are you talkin' about?" one of the cops said, sneering. "The old mayor ain't married."
"She was. To me. And I hear she's in trouble."
The sneering cop laughed, as if the humor of the situation had made him forget that he was being held at gunpoint. "Aw. How cute. How romantic. Well, you're too late, Romeo. She's gonna hang tomorrow, and I aim to be there to see it done."
For two cents, Solly would have shot him then and there, but that would also be the end of his mission. And Bella would still die in the morning.
So, he kept his cool and focused his attention on Suggs, a short, rat-faced man with an unshaved face. "You will help me," he said. "Now, cuff these two and we'll find somewhere to stow them."
"If you do it, Suggs," the sneering cop said, "you'll be a dead man tomorrow."
"And if you don't, you'll be a dead man today," Solly said.
After a moment's hesitation, Suggs nodded and, at Solly's direction, removed the weapons from his companions and dropped them to the floor. He then took their own handcuffs and restrained them as they cursed him. The cursing stopped once Solly and Suggs gagged them and then bundled their prisoners into an empty workshop that lay beside the path.
"She'll kill me for this," Suggs said as they shut the door on the two police officers who'd been attached to an iron radiator by a third set of handcuffs.
Solly, who'd kept the man covered throughout, shrugged. "You did it at gunpoint, you had no choice."
"She won't care, and they won't back me up neither," he said, gesturing at the workshop as they returned to the path.
"I'm sorry, but I came to rescue my wife—my ex-wife—and that's what I plan to do. Come with us if you want."
Suggs, who'd been walking slightly ahead of Solly, stopped suddenly and turned around. "Really? Where are you goin’?"
"No idea. I honestly haven't thought about it beyond getting her out."
"If you're plannin' on hightailin' it on foot, then I got some bad news for you."
Solly gestured for Suggs to start moving again. "I've got transportation," he said. Though the Humvee only took four people comfortably, so getting any more out of here would mean getting to know each other real well. "Now, where is she being held?"
"Right over there," Suggs said, pointing. The path led to a small park surrounded by trees and, on the other side, was a rectangular steel warehouse.
"I don't see any guards," Solly said, as he chose a path that kept as close to the trees as possible.
"They keep watch from inside. See those windows? That's the upper level. It's got a walkway all the way around. Want my advice? Wait till dark. If you don't, they'll see you a mile away."
Solly halted beneath a stand of trees facing the warehouse, and the two men crouched in the shadows.
"Now, what in the world is goin' on?" Suggs said, squinting at the area outside the entrance to the warehouse.
A van was parked there and two men in black uniforms stood outside. The building door opened and someone walked out, shielding their eyes with bound hands.
"They're doin' it today!" Suggs hissed. "Either that, or they're movin' them into town."
Panic coursed through Solly's veins. He had to act now, or it would be too late. He handed one of the sidearms he'd taken from the cops to Suggs. "Here. Either help me or make a run for it. It's up to you. But I'm going in."
"Are you crazy? They'll shoot you like a dog."
But Solly had retreated, pulled the gas canister out of his pack and set it off. Red smoke rose to the tree line and then, caught by the wind, it floated away.
It would be seen soon enough by the security forces at the warehouse so Solly drew the oth
er spare sidearm and ran across the space between park and building, a pistol in each hand like a white-collar Rambo.
Chapter 17
Bella sat in the little office that had become her jail cell and tried to make the tears come. She knew that a toxic mix of terror, grief and anger was fomenting within her, and yet she felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. And her greatest fear, as she sat and contemplated the next hours, was that the dam would break and she would shame herself in public.
So, she tried to lance the boil. Cry now so she wouldn't be humiliated later. But she was a dry husk. She thought of Maddie. At least she was safe, along with Bella's father. She could be sure of that because if they'd also been caught, Mayor Kennedy would have taken great pleasure in torturing Bella with the news. No, they were probably halfway to DC by now. But she would see neither of them ever again. And still the tears would not come.
Jake's situation was like a festering wound on her heart. She'd entrusted his safety to Nathan Woods, but had received no news since then. This wasn't surprising as neither Jake nor Nathan would know where she was, but still she yearned for at least some indication that he was safe.
Solly was almost certainly dead. She'd last communicated with him on the night it all happened and he'd suddenly been cut off. A woman had been looking after him, it seemed, but that was now five months ago and surely Solly would have come to find his family by now?
She'd hurt him badly, certainly, but that wouldn't lessen his love for his children. He'd look for them, wouldn't he? She felt another surge of guilt as she realized she'd barely given another thought to Todd, the man she'd left Solly for, since he'd died on the Long Night. At first, she had been focusing entirely on the survival of her children and father. Then, when grief should have come, it didn't. What sort of emotionally stunted bitch was she that a man she'd professed to love hadn't merited so much as a second thought in the past weeks?
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