Behind them, the flimsy barricade came crashing down, and the fire exit door swung open. A woman and two men came running outside carrying military carbines.
Teddy spun around and fired two shots in their direction, but they both missed.
The woman ducked for cover behind a dumpster while the men retreated inside the gun store.
“They’re in the back!” a voice shouted from the street.
“Run!” Teddy shouted.
They darted breathlessly down the alleyway and weaved around the mounds of trash as bullets whistled overhead and bounced off of the brick buildings.
Ahead of them, at the end of the alley, a heavyset man wearing multiple gold chains and expensive-looking wristwatches on each wrist blocked their path. He grinned as he leveled his chromed pistol at them and fired.
Teddy felt the bullet whizz past his arm. He raised his rifle and fired off his final two rounds.
The heavyset man jerked and wobbled as the bullets struck him in the stomach and chest. He staggered around, coughing up blood, and fired off three wild shots that flew high.
Teddy gripped his spent rifle like a baseball bat and swung it against the side of the man’s face. The weapon’s wooden stock cracked.
The man’s head snapped to the side, and his jaw dislocated. He spewed out blood and bits of broken teeth as he fell against the pavement.
Teddy dropped his rifle and ran up the embankment towards the highway. Ein followed close behind.
US 70 was blocked off by two more Tennessee Highway Patrol cruisers and a row of dead troopers. On the side of the road, a solar-powered electronic construction sign flashed a message in green letters: No Thru Traffic—Quarantine in Effect—Turn Around and Report to the Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium.
Past the blockade, gridlocked traffic coming from Nashville stretched down US 70 and went underneath Interstate 40’s overpass before disappearing in the distant shadow of Nashville’s metropolitan sprawl. The onramps were clogged, and the interstate was rendered impassable in both directions.
“Go up the ramp!” Teddy shouted. “Use the cars for cover!”
Ein nodded vigorously—he was too out of breath to speak. He pointed his rifle aimlessly back towards the alleyway.
A bullet whizzed between them and struck the electronic sign. The screen shattered and threw out a shower of orange sparks and smoke as it went dark.
On top of the roof of one of the buildings, Teddy saw the sunlight glint off of a sniper’s scope.
The inexperienced sniper fiddled with the scope, crouched down, and sighted-in again.
“Keep low and run!” Teddy ducked and ran behind one of the police cruisers.
Ein slung the rifle over his shoulder and ran after Teddy.
Two more shots caused the cruiser’s tempered glass in the rear window to explode and blew the red and blue plastic covering off of the rack of rooftop police lights.
Teddy and Ein ducked and weaved in-between the stalled out traffic as bullets pinged off of nearby cars and shattered windows. They leaped over and navigated around dropped luggage and numerous stiff, moldering corpses that lay sprawled on the asphalt and hung out of some of the vehicles.
Ein tripped over a young woman’s grey, withered arm and fell onto the concrete. He cried out in pain as the gravel cut through his pants and scraped into his knees.
“Come on—we’re almost clear!” Teddy reached down, grabbed Ein’s hand, and pulled him back up onto his feet.
“Thank you,” Ein said, dusting himself off.
A bullet struck the sedan next to them and shattered out the sunroof.
Both of them jumped and then resumed their mad dash through the maze of vehicles. The further they got from the town, the more errant the sniper’s shots became. Once they reached the interstate’s onramp, the sniper stopped firing altogether.
Ein stopped at the ramp’s entrance and leaned against the hood of an old Ford Fiesta, wheezing. Sweat dripped down his face. “I… I have to stop for a moment... Can’t breathe.”
“Christ, kid, you’re over twenty years younger than me—you should be running circles around me,” Teddy said, gasping for breath. He wiped his face with his sleeve and peered over the edge of the ramp’s concrete guardrail towards the town. “Hurry up. We sure as hell can’t stay here.”
Ein held up his index finger, still panting. “Just give me a minute…”
Looking back at the town, Teddy paled as he saw a group of bandits carrying shotguns and rifles climbed atop the vehicles. They ran and leaped from one car to the other as they advanced towards the ramp.
“We don’t have a minute! They’re coming this way!”
Teddy started running up the ramp, being careful to crouch low and stay behind the cover of the guardrail. “Move your ass!”
Ein let out an exasperated moan and stumbled after him.
At the top of the ramp, Teddy heard a noise: thith-thith-thith
“What’s that?” Ein asked breathlessly.
Teddy listened as the noise grew louder—closer. Soon there was no mistaking it for what it was. “It’s a helicopter.” He saw a black dot approaching rapidly from the south. “Take cover… Don’t let it see you.”
“Who is it?” Ein crouched down next to a pick-up.
“Probably some militia,” Teddy said, but he wasn’t so sure.
The bandits on top of the stalled cars stopped and stared at the approaching craft.
The helicopter passed over Teddy and Ein.
Teddy looked up and saw that it was a Black Hawk—the same type of craft that he had seen back at Camp Jayhawk. The Department of Homeland Security’s emblem was on the side of the craft’s tail boom, and FEMA was on the bottom between the landing skids in bold blue lettering.
Ein looked up, but the sun dazzled him. He squinted and tried to make out the markings. “Militia?”
“No—it’s the feds,” Teddy said.
The helicopter slowed as it neared the group of armed men. It banked to the side, and the soldier perched in the weapon pylon pointed the mounted machine gun menacingly towards the crowd. A voice boomed through the craft’s loudspeaker: Attention—drop your weapons now and surrender! Any resistance will be met with lethal force!
The bandits looked terrified as they peered up at the aircraft’s weapons—they knew that they were outgunned. They dropped their guns, hopped off the cars, and scattered in-between the vehicles as the helicopter hovered overhead.
Both of the craft’s side-doors slid open, and eight soldiers wearing black uniforms, respirators, and tactical vests emblazoned with FEDERAL POLICE fast-roped down to the street. They chased after the fleeing men and fired. Two of the bandits were gunned down—the rest threw their hands up and surrendered after that.
The sniper perched atop the gun store took two ineffective shots at the helicopter.
An immediate response came from the craft’s side-mounted rocket launchers.
In a matter of seconds, a billowing explosion mushroomed along the walls of Jim’s Guns & Ammunition. The building crumbled to the ground and entombed the sniper and four others who had taken refuge inside.
What little resolve the bandits had held onto, dissipated at the sight of the explosion—those still alive came out of the alleyways, and adjacent buildings with their hands raised high over their head.
“Do you think that they’re rounding up people for a nearby camp?” Ein asked.
“No, I don’t think so.” Teddy watched as the soldiers zip-tied the bandit’s hands together and took them into custody. One of the soldiers went to each prisoner and compared their faces to two photographs that he held in his hand. “They’re looking for someone.” He saw another helicopter approaching from the distance. “Come on. We need to go.”
“I don’t get it.” Ein shook his head. “Who are they looking for?”
Teddy glanced over at him and frowned. “You already know who…”
Ein had looked sick with terror. He stood silent and w
atched the drones for several seconds before speaking. “What do we do?”
“We need to get far away from this fucking place and pray that those helicopters don’t follow us.” Teddy started walking along the bottlenecked eastbound lane of I-40 between the vehicles. “Keep in cover… If one of them passes overhead—duck under something.”
Ein followed after him.
They moved east while the helicopter continued west.
Ein looked over his shoulder uneasily. “What if those soldiers on the street turn around and come this way?”
“How many rounds do you have left in that rifle?”
“I don’t know… Four, maybe? Three? Why?”
“Because if they do, you better make every one of those shots count.”
CHAPTER 3
As dusk approached, thick grey clouds rolled in from the west—blotting out the orange sun. The temperature dropped considerably, and the moisture hung heavy in the air. A cold front was moving in fast.
Teddy and Ein had been walking eastbound along the breakdown lane of the gridlocked I-40 for the past several hours. The interstate looped around downtown Nashville and what they saw was in line with what they had expected to see: a bunch of abandoned buildings and looted storefronts. Honky-tonk bars, record stores, and live music venues whose marquees featured cover bands and b-grade county singers lined the streets—their tacky neon lights lay darkened. The deceased littered the sidewalks.
They considered searching some of the buildings but then thought better of it. They would not be able to climb off the interstate and navigate the narrow downtown streets even if they wanted to since police barricades and stalled cars had created an impassible labyrinth along every avenue and thoroughfare.
Along the way, they spotted a few scattered groups of survivors. Luckily, nobody seemed to have the same bloodlust as the bandits they had crossed paths with in Dickson.
However, they weren’t particularly friendly, either.
The people they spotted milling about the streets below eyed them with considerable caution.
In the end, both parties kept their silence and maintained their distance as they passed.
It all suited Teddy just fine, but he could tell that the isolation was starting to wear on Ein. Why wouldn’t it bother someone his age? The kid was in college when the epidemic broke and used to being surrounded by people—surrounded by friends. It must’ve been hard watching them all die.
As they neared the bridge that crossed over the Cumberland River, droplets of freezing rain started to fall, and the biting cold wind kicked up.
Teddy buttoned up his duster and raised the collar to cover his neck, shivering. “I think we should call it a night.” He glanced up at the darkening sky. “It’d be a damn shame to make it this far just to catch pneumonia.”
“Yeah,” Ein agreed. He shivered and wrapped his arms around him. He pointed to the side of the road. “What about that place?”
Teddy looked.
Down the interstate’s concrete embankment and across the feeder street was an eight-story Hilton hotel that overlooked the river. The building’s lower windows were shattered and had dirty curtains that flapped out into the breeze, but the higher floors had their windows intact and appeared to be in decent shape.
“There are lots of broken windows, so there will be a draft—mighty cold night.” Teddy ran his fingers through his beard, thinking. “I guess we could go to a higher floor and find a comfortable bed, at least.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me.”
As they climbed over the guardrail and tiptoed carefully down the steep incline, a wintery mix of rain and sleet started falling. The already precarious path grew slick with melting shards of ice.
Teddy sprinted down the final few yards to the bottom and came to a hard stop in the overgrown strip of grass that separated the freeway and the feeder. He hurried to the street, crouched behind a taxi, and carefully surveyed the land.
Vehicles choked the feeder in front of the Hilton, and a derelict army tank blocked off a nearby intersection. The hotel lobby doors had been forced open, and valet luggage carts lay on the sidewalk along with emptied suitcases and scattered clothes.
Ein skidded down the embankment and ran up next to him. He peered over the top of the taxi. “See anyone?”
“Nope. Looks clear.” Teddy got up and squeezed past the stalled traffic as he headed towards the hotel lobby. “Get that rifle of yours ready just in case.”
Ein unslung his rifle and followed him.
Inside of the lobby, decorative garden troughs with wooden lattice backboards were placed on both sides of the walls underneath narrow, angled skylights. The troughs had overgrown before their soil finally dried out, and withered vines snaked up the walls and across the ceiling. A sign on the unattended front desk read: Honored guests—due to unforeseen staff shortages, please check-in/check-out using our app or by using our self-service kiosk next to the restaurant. We apologize for this inconvenience, and we promise to resume normal operations soon.
“Doesn’t look like any Hilton I’ve ever seen,” Ein said as he slowly fanned his weapon across the room.
“I can’t say that I’ve visited many fancy places like this.” Teddy looked up at the lobby’s crystal chandelier that had dying vines wrapped around it. “I never saw the point in blowing a lot of money just for a place to sleep.”
“It certainly isn’t fancy anymore.” Ein looked around and then shrugged. “It’s pretty grungy in here, but after the last few places we stopped at, I guess I can’t be picky.”
Teddy grimaced as a rat scuttled across the marble floor. “It might be nicer, but it’s not clean… I hope the rooms are in better shape than the lobby.”
They made their way up the stairs by the dim glow of Teddy’s flickering lighter. Their footsteps reverberated off of the walls and echoed throughout the stairwell.
“It’s been a long time since I was in a hotel,” Ein said as he held the rifle close and pointed it up towards the shadows.
“I used to stay at lots of motels, but this is my first time even stepping inside a Hilton.” Teddy ascended each step slowly and was careful to avoid the loose pieces of trash and linen left behind.
“You traveled?” Ein asked as he trudged up the steps.
“Before prison, yeah, I did.”
Ein laughed.
“Does that surprise you?” Teddy asked.
“Yeah—it does. You’re the one who preached to me about the importance of routines. Never pictured you as the wandering type.”
“I was a different person before Tucson, kid.” Teddy sighed and gave a faint smile. “Use to go to Corpus just about every other weekend.”
“Corpus?”
“Corpus Christi,” Teddy explained. “It had some pretty nice beaches as far as Texas was concerned. My wife used to love that place.”
“You never told me what happened to her.”
“That’s because I don’t know.” He frowned. “She didn’t keep in contact after the arrest—I lost her the same day that Bank of America lost fifty grand.”
“Do you miss her?”
“About as much as she misses me. I moved past her years ago.” Teddy carefully shuffled around a mound of trash on the landing and went up towards the top floor. “Truth be told, it’d be nice to travel someplace again. Lots of toxic mental shit gets washed away when you’re relaxing by the ocean.”
“We’re traveling now, right?” Ein gestured one hand at the stairwell. “No ocean, but lots of discounted hotel rooms.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right… I picked one hell of a time to take a road trip, didn’t I?” he asked with a slight smile.
Ein laughed. “You and me both.”
The eighth-floor hallway was surprisingly clean. The corridor was empty, aside from an unattended housekeeping trolley. A window at the end of the dark hall provided a pale light that revealed multiple doors with silver number placards.
“Which one?” Ein
asked as he eyed the doors.
“Dealer’s choice.” Teddy walked to the first door and slammed his shoulder against it repeatedly. After four consecutive strikes, the wooden frame splintered and the door flung inward.
The wafting stench of decay immediately struck both of them.
The royal suite had a sizable bed and an attached sitting area. Raindrops pelted against the picture window that overlooked the Cumberland River and Nashville’s darkened skyline. A man’s putrescent corpse wearing a hotel bathrobe lay in the middle of the king-sized bed surrounded by wads of used tissue. Two boney legs with blackened skin were poking out of the bathroom and had gnats and roaches crawling over them.
Teddy quickly pulled the door shut.
“How about I pick the next room?” Ein asked. He walked down the hallway and stopped at room 811. He slammed his shoulder against the door repeatedly, but the door didn’t budge.
“Christ… Step aside before you hurt yourself.”
Ein gratefully complied and walked away while rubbing his shoulder.
Teddy walked over and struck the door with his shoulder four times before the frame gave way, and the door swung inwards.
The only stench coming out of the suite was the smell too much commercial air freshener.
“Smells like a winner.” Teddy walked inside and checked the bathroom and the large sitting area next to the bed. Everything had a thin layer of dust on it, and it was evident that the room hadn’t seen a use for a long time.
“I call dibs on the bed.” Ein ran inside the suite, kicked off his boots, dropped his rifle, and flopped onto the bed on his back. He closed his eyes and let out a long sigh of pleasure.
Teddy looked at the pull-out sofa in the sitting area next to the balcony. After the garbage he had been sleeping on the past few nights, it looked pretty damn enticing. “Sofa suits me just fine.” He walked over to the mini-fridge, opened it up, and peered inside.
Warm sodas, beers, bottles of water, and a bottle of wine filled the door’s racks. Moldy sandwiches, a rotting vegetable platter, and an assorted collection of nuts and chocolate stood assembled on the shelves.
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