The green in her eyes glittered like gemstones, and again, for some reason, the hairs on his arms stood on end.
He watched her as she headed to the back of the apartment, unable to tear his gaze away from her retreating figure.
“She is dangerous,” he muttered to himself, “and I need to work on my restraint.”
The next morning, Crapmobile rumbled through one of the downtown area’s swankier housing districts, a little to the north of Bloor Street.
Here, there were huge, expensive houses on streets that were among the oldest in Toronto. Stonework exteriors, carefully cultivated lawns, and two hundred year old maple trees lined the streets. Sunlight filtered down through the green canopies onto white stone stairwells and interlocking stone brick driveways. It was upper class, urban suburbia, with multi-million dollar homes, bracketed by street cars and convenience stores on the major cross streets at the top and bottom of the quiet blocks.
Marshal instructed Jackie to pull Crapmobile over to the curb.
“Handles like a dream, Marshal,” Jackie said.
“You should have seen the earlier version,” Marshal said. “The Fred Flintstone model, back before we slapped the electric engine into it.”
He gestured to one of the screens.
“Camera mount on Angie’s headset,” he said. “Our latest addition, in case she doesn’t have the ability to talk into the microphone. I figured we’d pull over and give her a chance to do her thing. These neighborhoods are riddled with hiding places, new money, and god knows what else.”
He punched a button. “Everything okay, Angie?”
Beep.
“We’ll wait for a while, until you’ve finished your scout, and we’ll do a few passes of our own. Let us know when you’re ready to move on.”
Beep.
“I figured a low-key, people-search would be a good start for your first time,” Marshal explained. “We’ll launch another drone and give each of you some more practice at flying it through the neighborhood.”
“I’m amazed at how good Angie is at sneaking through the city,” Valerie said, as Sophie fretted, watching the screen. “Still. Isn’t it dangerous for her to be so exposed?”
“Very dangerous,” Marshal said. “But she was already good even before we perfected her disguise. Lately, I’ve seen undead wander right past her without a second glance her way. Which isn’t to say that it hasn’t been harrowing. But that little girl has nerves of steel, incredible anticipation, and the ability to remain absolutely still.”
“I still don’t like it,” Sophie announced.
“Trust me,” Marshal said. “There’s no amount of worrying that you can do that I haven’t already gone through. But it doesn’t matter. She’ll be fine.”
He swallowed his fear and hoped it was true.
Beth lay on the floor of her condominium’s panic room, unmoving, sprawled out amidst the scattered remains of her former life. Her ex-husband’s collection of blues CDs, tax receipts, photo albums, and old clothing mixed with pots and pails of her own waste and urine in a pungent testament to all that was left. Old dresses, stacks of books, magazines, and sundry keepsakes were only some of the examples of the stuff that had accumulated in the room over the years.
Six years ago, when Steve had paid those contractors to build the hidden, fortified panic room, it had been just one more thing added to the list of transgressions Beth had used as grounds for her divorce. She never agreed to the expenditure, even though it had come at a time when money had been plentiful, but her ex-husband had gone ahead and built it anyway. It had a generator, now on its last few drops of power, as well as a video feed, hooked up to security cameras all through their home, though three of them were now broken. Dry goods, originally enough to last for weeks, were now on the verge of running out. The phone and Internet were both inactive and useless.
She snorted. A waste of money, just like she’d always thought.
“You built us a prison, you idiot,” she said, her voice cracking from weakness and malnutrition.
The fractured sound of her own voice startled her, and she reached up to wipe a smear of dried-up saliva from her lips. The water was almost all gone, even the murky, dusty stuff she’d recovered from the bowl centerpiece and flower vase in her living room, that had filled up after the rainstorm. Speaking, however, was her most empowering characteristic. Her life as a lawyer in Thompson, McAdam, and Wolfe might seem like the distant past, instead of merely weeks, but the ability to articulate her feelings was a core part of her identity. If she was going to die, she wanted it to be with a coherent scream upon her lips.
Ignoring the dirtiness, she took a long sip from the last of her water.
“If you don’t like it,” Steve said, irritation and loathing evident in his tone, “then feel free to get up and walk out. You’ll be fine. I’m sure those things out there would spit you out the moment they tasted your poison.”
She glared at him, wanting to be furious with him but lacking the energy. Adding insult to injury was how well Steve had held up under the adversity. Sitting across the room from her with his back against the wall, he had the gall to look unaffected by their time in the panic room. Though he looked tired around the eyes, he had a health and vigor about him that belied their time trapped together. His clean shirt and suit pants outlined his toned and athletic body nicely. His hair, short cut and silver, still looked fabulous, albeit slightly messy, and his square jaw and the mocking glint in his blue eyes looked infuriatingly unfazed.
She scowled. How had he managed to keep clean-shaven? Had he groomed himself while she slept? He probably had a secret hoard of food and water stashed in here that she didn’t know about, something he accessed while she slept. It would be so like him. Like that time he’d tried to hide that fifty thousand during the divorce, claiming that they’d lost it during the financial crash. When her investigators had found the accounts in the Caymans and managed to have it all seized, she’d taken particular satisfaction in handing Steve’s lawyers the bill for the investigators fees and expenses.
She sighed, and let her glare drop away from his smug expression. What was the point anymore? Beyond the irony that she would spend the apocalypse stuck in a tiny room with the person she hated most in the whole world, there really wasn’t anything left to fight for. Somewhere, roasting in his own custom-made oven, Sartre was laughing his ass off.
Still. Some things could not be left to stand.
“Can you at least try not to be any more pathetic?” She took another sip of water. “You may have squirmed your way back into my life like the wriggling little rodent that you are, but it doesn’t give you license to misinterpret your own importance. The fact that you’re a failure only has bearing at the moment because, thanks to your ineptitude in building a panic space, we will be forced to leave this room.”
“Really?” Steve said, though his grimace told her that she’d scored. “Well cry me a river, my love. If you ask me, it couldn’t happen to a nicer complete bitch.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Actually, Beth,” he added brightly, “I take it all back. I mean, despite your wrinkles, cold blood, and personality of a rattlesnake on PCP, you’re still a fine-looking woman. No doubt the zombies will be enthralled at meeting such an attractive member of their own species.”
“And if only you had an attractive member, then maybe you could try sleeping with a real man-eater for once, and they’d welcome you too!”
“Nice,” Steve said grudgingly. “Penis joke. Go with what you know, right?”
“You’re just jealous that mine’s bigger than yours.”
“It always was, Beth. That much is obvious from the way you flop it around.”
“Now you’re just flattering yourself. It’s only a regular-sized clitoris, and it’s still bigger. Not that you’d know anything about my clitoris, of course.”
“Just what I need. Directions to the north pole.”
Elizabeth g
round her teeth. Steve had always been such an asshole. After his life as a top executive in that video store chain and his subsequent golden parachute when they went under, he became insufferably calm and happy in retirement. Prior to that, he’d merely been insufferable. Just looking at his face made her want to escalate hostilities, but she bit back her retort, knowing that they would just keep going if she didn’t. It had been like this for weeks.
Her peripheral vision caught movement on the monitor from one of her three remaining cameras. Zombie? No. She blinked rapidly, wetting her eyes and trying to bring them into focus.
After a few seconds, her jaw dropped open in disbelief, gazing at the screen in speechless amazement.
“What is it?” Steve asked.
It was a girl!
She was dressed in… in some sort of… weird poncho that looked like it was covered in garbage, moving delicately through the wreckage of what had once been Elizabeth’s living room. And she was noticing the cameras, looking right into them as if she could see Elizabeth on the other side. A thoughtful expression dominated the girl’s porcelain face, and Elizabeth marveled over how clean and healthy she looked – better even than Steve.
“You’re not saying anything,” Steve complained.
“Shut up,” Elizabeth answered, lurching painfully to her feet and hobbling over to the panic room door. She pulled the lever, and – like magic – the wall slid sideways and she found herself staring down at the surprised girl, not ten feet away
“Eep!” The girl scrambled backwards in fear, bolting for the open wall where Elizabeth’s big, picture window used to be.
“It’s okay!” Beth said, holding up her hands palm out, even as she edged forward. “I’m not going to hurt you! I just…hey! Wait!”
With surprising speed, the girl recovered from her scare and darted towards the opening before Elizabeth could stop her. Outside, sunlight was streaming down on the ramshackle streets that had once been one of the pricier neighborhoods in downtown Toronto.
But the girl held up, looking back at Beth with worried eyes.
“We’ll come get you,” the girl said in a low, whispery voice. “Marshal and the others have just returned from shopping, and he’s down the street with Crapmobile. They’ll explain everything and take you someplace safe. Go back inside. The streets are filled with zombies right now.”
“Would you look at that!” Steve said, gazing at the screen, his eyes filled with wonder. “What’s that she’s saying?”
Elizabeth ignored him. “Who’s Marshal? What’s his rank? Is he military or government? How soon before we can expect to get things back to normal?”
But the girl was gone, darting around the corner like a cat.
Frustrated, but suddenly alive with hope, Elizabeth edged forward so that she could peak out the front of her condo and into the street. It was the furthest she’d ever stepped out of the panic room since the crisis had started, but the possibility of imminent rescue was almost more than she could stand.
Of the girl, there was no sign, but just down the street, lurching aimlessly in the noonday sun, was one of them. Further down the street in either direction, she could see more, but the one was awfully close. Her courage wilted, and she scampered back into her crumbling home, slipped inside the panic room, and closed the wall-door.
Marshal? What kind of man would send a little girl out to do their scouting for them? What did it matter? ‘They’ were probably men, and they couldn’t be trusted for that reason alone, not without a legal system to keep them in line.
Still. Elizabeth wasn’t stupid. Whatever kind of men these rescuers were, she and Steve would have no choice but to accept their help. Dangerous they might be, but their odds of survival dropped to absolute nil without help.
So. Accept help… but be prepared.
She retrieved her purse, an $800 leather Beaux-Dennis that might as well be a burlap sack now. Her hand reached inside, caressing the handgrip of the 9mm Smith and Wesson hidden in her purse. She pulled it out and inspected it.
At her elbow, she heard Steve let go an evil chuckle.
“Brings back memories, doesn’t it, my love?” he said. “Should I be worried over here, or were you just glad to see me?”
She didn’t bother answering. Two hours later, when the last of the power finally trickled away, the video cameras flickered out, the overhead lights died, and the windowless panic room tumbled into a near-perfect darkness.
The room flashed back into visibility again as they both lit up their flashlights.
“Waste of money, eh?” Steve said. “And you wanted to re-do the kitchen!”
Chapter Sixteen: Day 32: Redeeming Broken Heroes
“Here we go.” Luca said. “Let’s see if this dog has any teeth.”
He flipped the lever on the breaker-box.
The ceiling lights in the gymnasium flashed into life.
Nearby, Torstein nodded once and gave a small fist pump, while most of the rest of New Toronto shouted out an impromptu cheer in the background.
“Thank god,” Marshal muttered, sagging with relief. Setting up the solar panels, fuse boxes, wiring, and electrical outlets had been complicated, time-consuming, and exhausting. Torstein, at least, knew a little about wiring and electrical work and could work independently, but the rest had required Marshal’s constant oversight.
Most debilitating of all had been the stress and fear of discovery. Despite having alternating guard shifts using a rotating array of drones to lure zombies from the area, the overpowering sense of exposure and danger while working outside had been toxic on the nerves. Every clattering fall of metal, every use of the portable drill, every tumble of falling rock, would conjure the terror of an unstoppable, flesh-eating attack. The constant need to power the drones and tools had become a problem, and Marshal had been forced to set up a temporary electrical station outdoors with two of the solar panels.
But in spite of all the terror, ‘Project Gymnasium’ was a spectacular success, and the community now had a fully powered, soundproof , hidden location, with a square footage greater than that of the apartment and Rothman’s combined. As planned, a twelve-foot high, camouflaged garage-door was installed, situated between two concrete columns in the one wall that was not buried by the debris of the crumbled school that used to surround it on three sides. This door opened up into a kind of ravine road that ran for twenty feet between two, fifteen-foot high piles of rubble that had spilled down around the gymnasium into the once open courtyard. These piles had been enhanced by frantic workers, while clearing out obstructing detritus from the planned roadway and collapsed portions of the gymnasium itself.
Marshal wearily accepted the ragged cheer from his workers when the lights flashed to life, even raising one arm in solidarity. It was a huge triumph, giving the blossoming community of New Toronto a truly amazing asset. The floors were now clear, if not clean and polished, along with the stage and the utility rooms. The hallways which led into those same collapsed buildings that now hid the gymnasium (and into which Sophie Wyatt had once ventured in her searches for food), had been deemed too unstable for future use. There were three of them; two had been walled off with broken fixtures and dirt piles. The third had been proclaimed by Torstein to be particularly dangerous, and after several attempts, they managed to induce a collapse to fill the gaping hole.
Marshal sank into one of the folding chairs that had been set up near the stage, watching in amusement as Cesar pelted Torstein in the shoulder with a basketball he’d retrieved from the equipment room. Trash talking and laughter immediately followed, and very soon the two of them, who had become friends, were engaged in an impromptu game of one-on-one with one of the gymnasium’s many basketball nets. Tired but proud workers were soon cheering and hooting at both players. As if by magic, Luca produced a case of beer, and with the echoing sounds of the ball hitting the floor and the squeak of shoes filling the air, the weight of the apocalypse felt like it was a million miles away.
&n
bsp; The chair next to Marshal creaked dangerously as Luca joined him.
“This was a good idea, Luca,” Marshal said, accepting a beer. “There are so many potential uses to this place that I’m kind of hoping we can get your old place up and running again. The luxury of being able to just come down and work out or shoot some hoops or whatever… there’s even a stage for performances!”
“Yeah,” Luca said wistfully, taking a drink. “I hear ya. Much as I’d like to keep it for myself, you’re probably right. Did’ja see the showers? Torstein thinks that the change and shower rooms are structurally sound, and that we could get ‘em working again. Can you fucking believe that?”
“Mm-hmm,” Marshal said through a swig of his beer. “Should make for a nice bonus, if we ever get the water running again. But that sort of thing can wait. For now, it’s enough that the space is secure and we can use it for whatever we like.”
They were interrupted by an errant ball, which Luca intercepted with one hand and flung back at the two players in one move.
“GET YER GUARD UP, TORRIE!” he bellowed.
“Bite me, Luca!” came the reply, and Luca laughed.
“So how do you plan to get the parts to make Shitbox from your yard to here?” Marshal asked.
“I’m doin’ it at night,” Luca answered, “so if you don’t mind, me and Brad will catch a ride back to the apartment with you, then head back to my yard. I’m gonna strip the Boom truck down - lose the engine, the tran, shit like that - and put a bunch of garbage blankets on it. When that’s done, I’ll load it up with all the parts and tools I need, hook it up to Crapmobile with a cable and tow it to the gymnasium. Brad can steer and-”
“Stop and pick up Albert,” Marshal interrupted. “Have him go with you.”
“What? Why?” Luca scowled. “That little twerp’s scared shitless of me.”
From Oblivion's Ashes Page 30