“Whatever,” Billy said. “But after we get there, Collin, you and I are done. Finished. You hear me?”
“Fine with me,” Collin replied, throwing his arms up.
“Come on, Bill,” Alex said, calmly pulling Billy inside.
“Fuck him. Fuck Billy,” Collin raved, flipping him off. He brushed past Steve and stomped back to the driver’s door.
Steve stayed behind, drowned in his thoughts. He tried not to, but he kept thinking about Mike. It was like a fresh wound in his memory. He wiped a lone tear from his cheek.
“Why, Mike?” he whispered. “Why?”
The Eye
April 8, 2009
1023 hours
“How much further do we have, Bill?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know. Why don’t you go ask our heartless—I mean,fearless—leader,” Billy replied, kneeling against the front right tire.
On a stretch of highway leading into California, Sweetie had sustained a flat. Billy had been driving, so he took responsibility of the change. The morning sun was hot. The thermometer read eighty-four degrees, and it wasn’t even midday.
Billy pulled off the tire and wheeled it to Alex. “Just toss it aside and grab me the other one. I don’t think anyone is going to care.”
Alex rolled the tire to the back and noticed Collin standing in the doorway. “Good, you’re up. You slept like a baby,” he said.
“Yeah, it felt good. I needed it.” Collin responded, taking a large drink from a bottle of water.
“Hey, how much longer do you think we have?”
“No idea. Where are we? Is Steve up yet?”
Before Alex could reply, Steve walked out of a nearby bush, having just finished his morning dump. “Good morning, sunshine. I left you a present over there. We’re about thirty miles northwest of Reno, but in California. I’d say we have about another six to seven hours until we hit the coast; depending on traffic, of course.”
A good twelve hours of sleep had revitalized Steve. The others had known Steve’s stressed-out mind needed rest, so they had let him skip a shift of driving. Now, he seemed eerily happy.
“One tire, coming up,” Alex said, bringing the replacement tire back to Billy. Alex didn’t have a problem with Collin, and still respected him. Billy, on the other hand, didn’t utter one word to him or even glance in his direction.
Within minutes, the tire was on. Billy plugged a portable air compressor into the generator. He accidentally over inflated the tire, then cursed at the sky as he had to let out the extra air. After he was finished, he cleaned up and went to the back to sleep. Alex took over driving, and Steve sat shotgun. Collin took out a cookies-and-cream power bar and ate it at the kitchen table.
“Hey, Cully,” Alex called to the back, “we may want to think about picking up an extra tire or two. We only have one more spare.”
The power bar was insufficient. In between handfuls of Cheerios, Collin replied, “Yeah, good idea. If you see a station or something like that, check it out.”
1644 hours
As Steve estimated, the drive took a little over six hours. On their way, they found an abandoned mom and pop gas station and acquired two more back-up tires.
“This is nothing like So-Cal,” Alex said, leaning forward in the driver’s seat to get a better view of the surroundings. The city of Uster was small, and had a midwestern, country feel. Houses were spread miles apart, separated by open fields and vineyards. Every so often they flew past a general store or diner; there was little commercial development.
With no detailed city map, Alex took the town street by street, looking for Hollow Road. Luckily, he spotted the tattered street sign and slammed on the brakes.
“I feel like Austin Powers,” he said, performing a six-point turn. He was so annoyed with the strung out turn that he ignored the twenty-five-miles-per-hour speed limit and accelerated to fifty miles per hour down the dusty country road toward the ocean.
Hollow Road wound up a small hill and eventually dead ended into a chain link fence, on which aPrivate Propertysign hung loosely.
“Did any of you see 450?” Collin asked.
Alex rolled down the window to check. “No, the last mailbox I saw was 350.”
“We couldn’t have passed it. There’s no way we all missed it. Could it be through there?” Steve asked, pointing at the private lot.
“I don’t know, but we’ve made it this far, so I’m going to look everywhere,” Collin declared.
“I got this,” Steve said, hopping out of the cab and pushing the rusty gate open.
The private road dipped down into an enormous open valley, filled with grape vines and lush shrubbery. Deer, birds, and a multitude of rodents pranced, flew, and scurried around the field. A half mile up the road, they located 450 Hollow Road, sitting on a bluff overlooking the ocean.
“I did not expect this,” Alex said, stopping the RV fifty feet in front of the residence.
Steve went through the roof and scouted the area. He gave the all-clear and went to the back to wake up Billy. Billy wasn’t thrilled with the two hours of sleep he had gotten, but he kept his complaints to a minimum. After grabbing a protein bar of his own, he followed the group out.
Staring in awe, the cousins stood in front of a massive gate, surrounded by a well-fortified perimeter.
“What is this, the Great Wall of California?” Billy joked.
“Whatever it is, I’d say this constitutes a safe place,” Collin said, referencing the email. “All right, let’s split up and check for a way in.”
The group separated and walked around either side, inspecting it. After finding no entrances of any sort, or any way to scale the walls, they regrouped in front of the gate.
“Looks like this is our only way in,” said Billy, tapping the massive gate.
“Any ideas on how to get in?” Collin asked.
“Well, we can try to go to the beach and see if there is something on that side,” Steve suggested.
While the cousins’ attention was on the gate, a group of four infected ran up the hill toward them. Billy was the first to hear the footsteps. “Infected!”
“Where’d they come from?”
“Must have followed us from the town, but it doesn’t matter. What are we going to do?”
All of their weapons were inside the RV and the undead now blocked their path. They tightened their fists and got ready for hand-to-hand combat.
“Spread out and pick one!” Collin ordered. “Do your best to get around them. Rendezvous at the RV!”
Just as they fanned out, expecting to throw swings, gun shots rang from up above, mowing down the undead. One of the bullets nicked Alex’s shoulder and blasted through an infected woman’s head. The cousins looked back in awe, wondering what happened. Two men with smoking gun barrels lowered their weapons and disappeared back into the compound.
“What the fuck just happened?” Alex asked, grabbing his shoulder.
“I don’t know, but looks like there’s someone here after all,” Collin responded.
Suddenly, the gate lifted from the ground. Behind the wall, one of the shooters and an unknown woman appeared.
“Come quickly, before more come!” the woman ordered, motioning them to come inside.
Without hesitation, the cousins rushed back into the RV. As soon as Sweetie pulled through, the gate immediately dropped shut behind them. All around them, dozens of faces stared. The RV crept forward as the woman guided them like an airline worker on a tarmac. She signaled for Collin to park in an unmarked area in the back right of the compound, then disappeared.
“All right, follow my lead,” Collin ordered, turning off the engine.
Unsure of what to expect, Collin, Billy, Alex, and Steve cautiously piled out of the driver’s door one by one. Three men with rifles approached the cousins. One was much older than the other two, but carried himself with confidence. The second was in his early twenties and stood well over six feet tall, with a shaved head and aviator su
nglasses. The last was a pudgy, pig-faced guy, also in his early twenties.
“Put your arms up,” Sunglasses ordered to the newcomers. Like bouncers at a night club, he and Pig-face patted the group down one by one.
Alex and Billy were third and fourth in line, and were stubbornly resistant.
“I don’t have anything! Get your damn hands off me!”
“Yeah, fuck off, homos!”
Alex and Billy pushed off the armed men and tightened their hands into fists. At the signs of aggression and the challenging attitudes, Sunglasses and Pig-face shuffled back and pointed their rifles at the uncooperative cousins. Collin jumped between them and the guns.
“Hold on, hold on! No one needs to get hurt!” he pleaded to the older man and apparent leader. He turned to face his cousins. “Guys! Just deal with it!”
For a tense twenty-seconds, Billy and Alex stood their ground, until the older man signaled for Pig-face and Sunglasses to lower their guns in an act of good faith.
“Now let them search you or I’ll shoot you myself!” Collin ordered.
Billy and Alex lifted their arms and allowed a very quick pat down, though not without snide remarks. After the search yielded no weapons, the older man was satisfied.
“Come with me,” he said in a low, stern voice. The request seemed more like an order, but the cousins followed.
The older man led them around the courtyard into a conference room. The room was chilly, and the stone walls were coated in a neutral-white, sloppily-performed paint job. Metal chairs were stacked neatly against a fold-up table. Unlabeled cardboard boxes were stacked against all four walls. Pig-face nudged the cousins inside with the barrel of his rifle, and Sunglasses closed the door, then stood off to the side in an arrogant pose. The older man leaned against the back wall, arms crossed.
“Colonel Seaton?” Collin asked, breaking the awkward silence. He could tell the older man was taken aback by his assumption.
“Yes. That’s right,” the older man replied, setting his gun down against the wall. “Have we met before?”
“No. My name is Collin, but please let me explain.”
Collin took the next few minutes to recap his family’s situation. He gave the colonel a brief account of their travels, how they had left the East Coast and had made their way west. He described their stop at Fort Kennedy, and how they had accessed his computer and found the letter and address. He ended by describing their search for 450 Hollow Road, Uster, California.
“Wait, you expect us to believe that you actually went through Salt Lake City? And survived?” Sunglasses asked.
“Yes. Why would we make that up?”
“That place was a death trap. I saw it all over the news. Well, when it was still broadcasting. No one in their right mind would go there,” Sunglasses said, sounding more and more suspicious. “Dad, these guys are probably thieves. I say we kick them out before they try and hold us up and take our food and equipment.”
Suspicion escalated and tension rose. For the second time in five minutes, Sunglasses and Pig-face drew their weapons at the newcomers. The four cousins, thinking that a fight would ensue at any moment, spread out and gave themselves room.
“Whoa, I don’t know what your problem is, guy, but we aren’t thieves,” Collin said, holding a defensive stance. “We aren’t here to steal anything. We have our own stuff.”
Pig-face nervously shook his rifle. “Oh yeah? Then why would you come here?”
“Are you deaf or just that stupid?” Alex snapped back.
Collin stepped in before Pig-face could muster a response to Alex’s insult. Collin faced the quiet and seemingly reasonable colonel. “Sir, we told you. We retrieved the address on your computer. We’ve been on the road for a long time now, and have been looking for somewhere safe. Somewhere to relax, and quite frankly, to try to live a normal life again. That’s the honest truth. We’ve seen a lot of places and driven for months. So either shoot us or tell your goon squad to point their guns somewhere else.”
The colonel smiled but remained silent.
The man with sunglasses took them off and hooked them on his shirt. “How convenient. Do you think I’m an idiot? How’d you know his password?”
“Susan. The memento on the cabinet shelf. It was from a woman named Susan. We tried that, and it worked,” Collin said.
The colonel finally spoke. “I’m pretty impressed—”
Before he could continue, a scrawny young man burst through the door. “Sir! You should see this! We checked their RV, and these guys are packing some serious heat: rifles, grenades, and all sorts of stuff.”
Sunglasses raised his gun up again. “See, Dad! I’m telling you, we should get rid of them!”
Collin cut him off and took a step toward the colonel. “Sir, I know what it looks like, but I promise you I can explain.”
The colonel waved for the other men to lower their weapons, then gestured Collin to speak.
“We’ve survived this long because we had some of those weapons since the initial outbreaks. We picked up more rifles, guns, and explosives at your base,” Collin explained.
Steve stepped forward and explained how he had accessed the armory. Alex and Billy chimed in and gave further descriptions of the compound. The explanations were far too detailed to be fabricated.
“We aren’t making this shit up, and we sure as hell aren’t thieves, asshole!” Steve said roughly, emphasizing the insult.
Everyone turned to Colonel Seaton for a response. After much deliberation, he surprised everyone with three little words.
“I believe you.”
“Dad, how can you—” Sunglasses tried to argue, but the colonel cut him off.
“Enough, Robert! I said I believe them, and that’s that. There is no way they could have made that story up, unless they were actually at my base, unless they actually went into my office, the armory, and the rest of the fort. Now, boys, put your guns down. That’s an order!”
Pig-face and Sunglasses reluctantly obeyed.
“As you already know, my name is Colonel Mark Seaton. The hot blooded gentleman with the sunglasses you have already had the pleasure of arguing with is my son, Robert. The man to his left is his friend, Corey Mathews, and the one who burst into the room is another of his friends, Brian Quick.”
Steve and Collin courteously extended their hands, but Corey and Robert declined. Collin spun his extended hand around to the colonel.
“Good to meet you sir. These guys are my cousins. This is Billy, Alex, and Steve.”
“Corey, is it? That’s a nice looking rifle you got there. Shame you’re a terrible shot,” Alex said.
“Terrible shot? You’re lucky! I should have just let those walkers tear you to shreds!” Corey fired back.
Alex took a step toward Corey. “Why don’t you just toss that thing over here and I’ll show you how to use it!”
Billy stood behind Alex, backing him up. Steve joined out of solidarity. The three inched closer to the others and exchanged multiple insults. Tempers flared and finally peaked when Corey shoved Alex. Immediately, Alex threw a right hook to Corey’s jaw. Billy threw a haymaker, which missed, but followed up with a left jab to Brian’s nose. Steve dipped under a right hook from Robert and landed a shot to his ribs. Before it could escalate to an all out brawl, Collin and the colonel ran over and broke up the fight.
“Billy! Alex! Get your asses back to the RV and cool off, now!” Collin shouted, pulling the two factions apart.
The colonel did the same with his son. “Robert, that’s enough! Get your friends back to their positions!”
Steve turned and listened, stopping any further assault. Robert used the distraction to throw a cheap jab at Steve’s right temple. The punch was weak; more annoying than hurtful.
“Enough!” Mark roared. He grabbed his son’s shoulder and yanked him back. Similarly, Collin stepped in front of Steve, pushing him away.
Billy dragged Alex out by the arms as he cursed at Corey. ”Hey,
asshole, why don’t you stop by the RV sometime, and I can teach you how to fight, too!”
Collin shoved Billy and Alex through the conference-room door. “Go! I’ll meet you at the RV!”
After the aggression was out, Steve and Robert were the only two allowed to stay. Both eyed each other with a stare that could burn a hole in a wall, but turned to give Mark their full attention when he spoke.
“Now that that’s over, would you like some water?” Mark asked the newcomers, who gladly accepted. He dragged over two chairs, and he and Collin sat. Robert leaned up against the wall by the door and held his ribcage. Steve flashed a quick smile of triumph and stood behind Collin.
“Sorry about that, Colonel,” Collin said, sitting upright in the chair. “It’s been a long trip, and we recently lost someone close to us.”
“It’s okay. Sorry for your loss. I apologize for my son and his friends as well. And please, call me Mark.”
“First things first. Thanks for saving us back there,” Collin said. “But sir,—sorry, force of habit—Mark, what is this place?”
“You’re welcome. Force of habit? Am I speaking with a military man?” the colonel asked curiously.
“Yes, sir. Well, formerly. Honorably discharged USMC.”
“Well then, I suppose that makes two of us. Well, without the honorable discharge.”
“Dishonorable? May I ask?”
“Certainly. You read the letter to my son. I was all set, and had orders to report back east to lead a unit to research the infection on the front lines. I couldn’t understand the rationale behind such an order, so I contacted a colleague of mine, who told me that the East was devastated by the plague.”
The Longest Road (Book 1) Page 17