Self-doubt was something she always battled and compensated for with hard work and resolve. There's nothing scary about being tenacious, she thought. At least not to herself. She did learn, though, that tenacity had a tendency to scare others. She used it as a tool to keep a safe distance emotionally from those around her.
As far as the others being left behind on the beach, she tried not to think about them. It literally tore at her insides. She'd spent the better part of the last few years helping people and making their lives better. It was how she compensated for her own inner flaws. If she couldn't sort out her own life then at least she'd make things better for others.
Tonight, however, as they snuck off stealthily into the dark, she was doing the opposite of that. She knew where those people would end up and she knew it wouldn't be a good place. She knew they were leaving some of those people to die right where they were. It wasn't a comforting thought, and no amount of rationalization on her part would change that.
Gary could care less about the people they left behind. Especially that bastard he'd gotten into the fight with. His temper was something that he used to try and control in his early years, but eventually he decided it wasn't worth the effort. He figured that his temper was a blessing, as it's what led him to work with machines.
Machines he understood. They were practical and predictable. Plus, they always needed his care. They always needed some sort of human intervention to keep them going, in spite of their predictability. They wore down over time, just like he did.
Now in his early 40s, Gary often spent his time working on engines and wondering how he'd gotten to where he was. Being introspective depressed him, so he'd throw himself more into his work. It didn't make him an overly thoughtful person, but he got a heck of a lot of work done.
He figured those left behind would just have to make do on their own. That's what everybody had to do in this world. Suck it up and use whatever talents you had to the best of your ability. Hard work and focus were the values that Gary believed in. That and his ability to throw a punch.
He learned long ago that when his temper got the better of him, it was best to just go with it. Throw the punch, or say whatever needed saying and deal with the consequences later. Quite often, he deployed the strategy of taking it out on the biggest asshole in the room.
The plan was to stock up. They needed to get equipped for what was ahead of them. It was a long road from Atlantic City to New York, especially starting out on foot. The smart move suggested by Sam, with which the rest of the group agreed, was to hunker down someplace safe in the city for a few days and do some hardcore scavenging. The trick was going to be finding a place in the city that wasn't already overrun or infested with some of the looters and thugs Garrett and Holly had come across. They'd do everything as a group, hoping for safety in numbers.
One good thing about being in Atlantic City was that there was no shortage of accommodations. Hotel buildings jetted up around every corner, but a lot of them looked like they had been looted and had plenty of things stolen.
They decided to find a small place a little off the beaten path. Someplace that wasn't too far from the rest of the city, still within scavenging distance, but someplace safe as well. Someplace that wouldn't be a big target.
It occurred to them to find the least popular place they could. Where in a casino town like Atlantic City would no one want to go? Then they found it. The local YMCA. No one comes to Atlantic City to do aerobics or yoga, that's for sure. One would even have to wonder why they'd bothered building such a place here. But there it was, looking pristine as ever as they turned the corner. With any luck, there'd still be hot water in the tanks.
Chapter 15 ~ YMCA
Surprisingly to all of them, except for Sam, it seemed, the door to the YMCA was completely unlocked. It opened without resistance and they all just strolled into the main hallway. It was as if they were open for business in the middle of the night, without a problem. As they entered, there were offices on either side of them. The doors to the offices were locked, at least the ones on the right were. The door on the left opened into a big meeting room. They ventured a peek inside, but there didn't seem to be anything other than one big table, some well-worn chairs and a whiteboard. It was hard to make out in the dim light of the moon, which shone in through the big window to the meeting room. There didn't look to be anything of value here, so they moved on.
There was a narrow window next to the door into the main offices. They could see rows of cubicles and a few doors that probably led to smaller offices. The door lock was electronic, but still remained locked in spite of the lack of power. Even if they had a key card, they wouldn't have been able to open it.
They ventured further down the hall, through another set of doors, and found themselves standing in a narrow hallway surrounded by windows on both sides. The windows went floor to ceiling on both sides. The windows looked down on two swimming pools. The one on the right was a bigger one, with lanes for swimming. They couldn't see all the way to the end of the pool in the moonlight filtering through the skylights above the pool. The pool on the other side was smaller and had special apparatus that looked like it was for helping handicapped people into the pool. There were access ramps, suspension straps and what looked like a mechanized lift chair.
They ventured further down the hall before Holly spoke up.
"Well, if anything I suppose it looks like we found plenty of water."
"Is it safe to drink chlorinated water?" Gary asked.
"Can't say I've ever heard of anybody dying from swallowing too much water at the swimming pool," Garrett offered.
"We really should keep our voices down until we're sure that we're the only ones in here," Sam said in a quieter tone. Everyone nodded in agreement, even Gary.
Through the next set of doors, they entered what appeared to be the central atrium of the facility. There was a welcome desk and a ceiling that was several floors high. They were surrounded by windows looking into other rooms, but couldn't see what the other rooms were. It was too dark now.
"We should just wait here for a few minutes and let our eyes adjust to the dark," Sam suggested. "Keep your ears open as well, just in case there's someone else in the building. I'd rather hear them before they hear us."
The five of them inched their way to the center of the atrium area and found a table with chairs. They proceeded to pull out the chairs when Garrett whispered,
"Maybe it would be better if we didn't sit in the center of the room. Wouldn't it be better to have our backs to the wall somewhere, like in the old westerns? That way no one can sneak up on us from behind."
"Good idea," Holly said.
They inched their way over, being careful not to bump any tables or chairs and send them screeching across the floor, just in case they weren't the only intruders in the building.
"Didn't you take anything with you, like a light, in that pack of yours?" Veronica asked Sam.
There'd been a debate when they were leaving the boat as to whether or not they should take things with them. Some felt that it was more important to leave those remaining with whatever supplies were still on the boat, while others felt it was more important to have whatever they needed. They were the ones going out into the unknown, and they would need whatever supplies they could to get them started.
Holly and Veronica had argued that they'd be able to find their own supplies since that was the first task on their to-do list. It seemed wrong to steal from the others. Sam insisted it wasn't stealing, that none of it belonged to any of them. This was about survival of the fittest. That wasn't an argument that held any weight with the girls at this point, especially Veronica, who threatened to stay behind if they took too much. Sam had reluctantly collected a small pack with a few items before they left. At the moment, he regretted not taking more.
"I have some flares that I'm sure would light the way but it might be a little overkill for this situation. Not only would they blind us, they'd likely
alert anyone else to our presence."
"Yeah, I guess flares aren't exactly what you'd call stealthy lighting effects," Gary said sarcastically. "Good choice."
"I didn't see you collecting any supplies," Garrett said to Gary. They both gave each other dirty looks, and Sam started to wonder if maybe he'd made the wrong choice about who to recruit for their group.
Suddenly, all their attention was captured by a loud banging sound coming from somewhere below. They all startled, and Holly and Veronica grabbed one another. It was incredibly loud and sounded like a cross between a car backfiring and a gunshot. The sound continued every sixty seconds or so. Once it stopped for a good two minutes, long enough for everyone to think it had stopped, when suddenly it let go with the loudest bang of all, sending everyone jumping out of their skins. Whoever or whatever it was didn't seem too concerned about being discovered.
<<<>>>
No one made a sound as they huddled in the darkest corner they could find in the main atrium. The banging sound persisted, getting louder at times and then quieter. Nobody wanted to say anything for fear of giving away their position.
It seemed easy at the moment to just sit there and wait. Easier than it would be to take action, but they all knew that eventually someone would have to move and someone would have to go and investigate. The noise wasn't going to stop on its own.
"One of us is going to have to go figure out where that noise is coming from," Sam said. "It's probably nothing. Probably just some door slamming in the wind, or an animal trapped in a vent somewhere. We shouldn't be letting it get to us. There are other more important things to accomplish right now."
For a few moments, no one wanted to respond to Sam's suggestion. They'd all been through enough in the last few days, and the thought of dealing with another situation didn't appeal to anybody.
"Becky could be in a similar situation," Garrett said, just letting that thought hang out there.
"Who's Becky?" Gary said. Gary hadn't said a lot so far, but when he did, it seemed to get on the others' nerves.
"She's our daughter," Holly answered. "That's the reason we're going to New York, to try and find her."
"What if she is in a situation like this?" Garrett persisted. "Sitting here whimpering in a corner like a bunch of scared rats isn't helping to solve the situation. I don't know who or whatever the rest of you want to find, but sitting here certainly won't help."
Nobody disagreed with what Garrett was suggesting, but on the other hand, no one wanted to be the first one to move.
Their eyes by now had adjusted to the sparse moonlight filtering in through the outdoor windows to the central space. There were also some skylights up high that were partially clouded by opaque windows and let in some light. Not much of it managed to filter down here though. Whoever designed the skylights seemed to be more entranced with the idea of putting skylights in than making them actually functional.
"I think we need to split up," Sam said.
Everyone looked at Sam like he was crazy. They'd all seen too many horror movies about how a group being chased by some crazy maniac split up and then got picked off one by one. No one actually voiced their concerns, but no one leaped up to volunteer either.
Sam got the hint and changed his tack. "Alright, we stick together and move as a group. But we need to explore and find out where that sound is coming from. I'm almost sure that it won't be anything. There's no way a person making that much noise would have evil intentions."
"Right," Veronica said sarcastically. "Because everybody else these days thinks as rationally as we do. There's no reason why anybody would just make some kind of crazy banging noise with the hopes of luring us to a location and then attacking us or picking us off one by one. There's no reason at all why anybody would do that, right?"
Holly and Garrett couldn't help but think about the day's events and the things that they'd seen in the streets, with the gangs and the mobs and executions. They hadn't told anybody else their story and were wondering now if keeping that secret was such a good idea. At least one of them was.
"You guys need to know something," Garrett said. Holly looked at him questioningly, wondering where he was going with this. "Holly and I saw some things in the streets that you should probably know about. There are gangs controlling the city. At least one of those gangs is nothing more than a bunch of barbaric vigilantes."
"Barbaric vigilantes?" Veronica said, hugging herself.
"I'm not really sure that everybody needs to know all the details," Holly said. "Just suffice to say that regular law and order isn't the norm these days. People are taking justice into their own hands and doing all kinds of crazy things. There's no law enforcement or military to stop them."
"That pretty crazy, but not that surprising," Sam said. "Maybe a few more details would be helpful."
"Suffice it to say," Garrett said as he looked at Holly, remembering what they'd witnessed, "we saw people executed in the street for crimes we weren't exactly sure of. All we heard was that they'd beaten dogs."
"That's it?" Gary asked.
"Isn't that enough?" Veronica said. "Beating poor, defenseless animals is a pretty reprehensible activity. I can't understand why anybody would want to do something like that."
"Yes," Holly said. "But I'm not sure it should carry a death sentence."
"Well, to be totally fair," Garrett said, "they're beating people as well. Us to be specific. They basically beat us and took what few supplies we had managed to collect and left us for dead in the street."
"That's horrible," Veronica said. "So that's how you ended up wrecking your leg?"
"Yes," Holly said. "But we have no reason to believe that the gang that executed the four men even knew about that. I kind of doubt it. They never lifted a finger to help us. As it turned out, the two of us had to fend for ourselves and find our own way back to the boat."
"They didn't seem like the helping hand types," Garrett said. "I suppose, if they had found us, we looked well past saving. Still, it's pretty horrible to think that in this day and age, people wouldn't stop to help. That's not a place I want to live in."
"Well," Sam said. "Then I guess we can't just sit here huddling in the corner and wait for the world to come and save us. We need to solve our own problems. It's time to go exploring and figure out who or what the hell is making all the racket."
<<<>>>
Moving as a group was certainly much less stealthy than moving as one or two people, but the consensus of the group ruled. No one wanted to split up and be picked off by whatever their crazy imagination could conjure up.
Traveling together, they made their way through several long hallways. They opened u into another set of rooms and one larger one full of old workout and fitness machines. Past this, they found themselves on a small indoor running track, then several smaller fitness rooms. That's not where the sound was coming from though.
The sound seemed to be coming from down a flight of stairs that descended into pitch black. Even with their eyes adjusted, they could only see so far into the darkness.
Everyone looked around at each other as if hoping for a volunteer to lead the way.
"Someone's got to go first, I suppose," Garrett said, taking the lead, followed by Holly, and then the rest of them huddled together. The stairwell was wide, obviously intended to accommodate a lot of people moving through the building. The sound grew louder the closer they got to the bottom of the stairs.
"So you said you were a fixer?" Veronica asked, directing her question at Sam. "What exactly does that mean? It's a pretty vague term."
"Oh nothing special," Sam said. "It just means that I deal with problems that people have in their everyday world and find solutions."
Veronica stared at Sam. No one could see in the dark the face she made, but it was obvious she wasn't satisfied. "That still pretty vague. I mean, to me, a fixer could mean a lot of things. It could mean you fix mistakes in accounting ledgers. It could mean you fix mistakes in the way a cit
y road is laid out. It could mean you fix mistakes in the way an architectural building is designed on the blueprints. It could mean a lot of things."
"Yep, I'd agree," Sam answered curtly.
<<<>>>
"Are you trying to be evasive?" Gary said. "What are you, like an assassin or something? You run around executing heads of state, or people in corporate institutions that don't do the jobs they're supposed to be doing?"
Everybody stopped for a second, looking at Gary like he was some sort of lunatic.
"You wanted this guy to be part of our group?" Holly said.
"What?" Gary said. "The guy's either some kind of top-secret something or other, or he just wants us to believe that he is. He's not answering any of her questions and he's acting annoyingly evasive about what it is that he does. Considering the situation we’re all in, wouldn't you want to know more about him?"
The banging became more frequent and louder. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks. Veronica grabbed onto Holly and pulled her in close. Holly didn't mind, welcoming the comfort that came from being next to someone. It crossed her mind just how long it had been since she'd had such close physical contact with someone she didn't spend half her time arguing with. It was a strange thought to come to her considering they were in the middle of a moment ripped from some eighties slasher flick.
They moved down a number of corridors that all opened into locker rooms. This place had a lot of locker rooms. The usual men's and ladies', but also family locker rooms, premium men's, and premium ladies'. It took them a while before they finally tried enough doors that they found another set of stairs leading even further down.
"I thought we were already in the basement; where could these stairs go?" Sam said.
"It's hard to tell," Garrett added. "But if my sense of direction is anywhere close to being right, I think these stairs lead down under the big pool. I'm not sure you'd be building rooms under thousands of gallons of water. That just seems like a bad architectural design."
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