by Hunter Shea
Elizabeth crouched closer to her face. “What makes you think it was the smoke that made you sick?”
“We’ve been sick for days. If we had a cold or flu, at least one of you would have gotten it by now, especially your little one. But it’s just us. You were a nurse. Could there have been some kind of chemical that we breathed in? Like what got into the lungs of the first responders on nine-eleven? I met a woman in Pennsylvania who lost her husband to some kind of lung infection. He was a firefighter in the Bronx when the Towers went down. He worked at Ground Zero for six solid weeks.”
“I don’t know. With them, symptoms didn’t show for months, or even years.”
Dakota felt the heavy tug of fevered sleep pull on her. “It’s something to think about. I could be wrong. I hope I’m wrong.”
The dark room lost focus for a moment.
“But if I’m right, what if whatever made us sick is still out there?”
37
Things were getting to the tipping point. Buck kept the lights on for most of the day, if only to combat a blanket of depression that had settled over all of them. Man was not made to live in the dark.
The little kids were beyond antsy, given to prolonged bouts of crying for no reason. He’d known Gabby since she was an infant, and she’d never been much of a crier. Now, she couldn’t stop.
It didn’t help that Rey and Dakota weren’t getting any better. Supplies were running low, and even though he knew he was used to it, the smell was getting worse.
Elizabeth had brought Dakota’s theory to him and Daniel and Alexiana the day before.
“Fucking chemical warfare,” he hissed, eyeing a sealed plastic container that supported two boxes of MREs. “I don’t have anything that can detect something like that.”
“It might not be that,” Daniel said. “If something blew up, it could have been burning plastics or those damn CFL bulbs. Those things are so toxic, you have to clear the room if one breaks.”
Elizabeth said, “Either way, they need a doctor. Whatever it is has settled into their lungs and is resistant to the antibiotics we have. We have to leave the shelter.”
Buck had to couch his reply. He’d been sensing their frustration with him. Everyone wanted to get out. Naturally, he was the bad guy, keeping them all cooped up in a high-tech tomb.
If he could hear just one person on either of the radios.
With Rey and Dakota sick, they’d run out of time waiting for news that the coast was clear.
“I’m not gonna argue with you, Lizzie. I’m not dumb enough to come between a mother and her sick child. I’ll go and scout around.”
“We’ll go,” Daniel said.
“Not a good idea. One of us should stay here.”
“Don’t go male chauvinist on us,” Alexiana said. “We can take care of ourselves.” She shot him a warning look.
Buck pushed back from the table. “Max, can you help me for a sec?”
Max came from the bunkhouse and lifted the MRE boxes off the container, stacking them on the table. Buck lifted the plastic lid and pulled out a pair of black backpacks.
“What’s in those?” Max asked.
“These are what I call Bugout for the Dugout bags. I have four already made. There are six more on the bottom that you all should fill. I’ll give you a list of what you need. This is just in case. Once I open the shelter, we have to be ready for anything.”
He unzipped the bag. All of the contents had been neatly arranged inside.
“Holy crap,” Max said.
“Watch your mouth,” his mother scolded.
Daniel stood over the bag, looking over everything.
Buck said, “Each has your basic survival necessities: freeze-dried food, water and water purifiers, first aid kit, map of the tristate area and country, light sticks, fire starter, waterproof poncho, duct tape, scissors, face masks, flashlight and penlight, batteries, rope, blanket, and my favorite”—he extracted a large, silver blade from a leather holster—“you can’t go anywhere without a good bowie knife.”
He disappeared into the bunkhouse while everyone carefully went through the Bugout for the Dugout bag. When he came back, he placed two silver pistols and two shotguns on the table.
“Whoa, isn’t that a little extreme?” Daniel said. He smacked Max’s hand when he went to touch one of the shotguns.
“Dan, we don’t know what the hell we’re going to find when we leave here. If power hasn’t been restored, order sure as hell hasn’t, either. Your best friend can be your worst enemy. We’re not going anywhere unless we’re able to defend ourselves. We have a lot of precious cargo we need to care for.”
Elizabeth palmed one of the pistols. “It’s so heavy.”
“That’s a Beretta 92FS. One of the most reliable guns ever made. Each can hold fifteen nine-millimeter rounds. They’re easy to shoot and will put an immediate stop to a bad situation.”
“Or make it worse,” Elizabeth said.
Daniel held the shotgun, hefting it as if he was guessing its weight. “If we have the Berettas, isn’t this overkill?”
Buck took his cowboy hat from the peg on the wall and squashed it on his head.
“No such thing as overkill anymore, Dan. I say we head out now.” He checked his watch. “We’ll have eight hours of daylight. Max, hand me that box over there.”
“What’s that?” Elizabeth asked.
“Geiger counter,” Buck replied, taking out a black box with a handle built into the top and a glass display. “If there’s any radiation out there, this will warn us. If we end up right back inside, it’s because this thing will be wailing off the charts.”
Daniel stared at the bags and guns for a moment. He looked to his wife and son, then at Rey in his bed and Gabby and Miguel playing checkers on the floor of the bunkhouse. Slipping the backpack over his shoulder, he said, “Where should I put the guns?”
38
“You have to close the door behind us as fast as possible,” Buck said to Alexiana.
She and Elizabeth stood by the door wearing multipurpose respirator masks. Buck and Daniel had their bags slung over their shoulders, shotguns in hand. The children had been ushered into the bunkhouse after Daniel made the rounds saying good-bye and promising to be back very soon.
Buck and Daniel wore military gas masks with large visors that covered their eyes and noses. A black canister protruded from the mouthpiece. Each also held a full, black plastic trash bag filled with garbage and some of the waste from the chemical toilet. It would do wonders to relieve the cloying smell of the shelter.
Despite the mask, Alexiana could hear her boyfriend quite well.
“There’s no telling what’s still in the air, so the less you let in, the better,” he said.
“I know,” she said.
Elizabeth’s eyes were shiny, but she’d been able to hold back her tears as she stroked Daniel’s hand.
“Who knows, we may go out there and find everyone having a block party,” Daniel said, his grin lifting the mask higher on his face. “We might scare the crap out of them.”
Elizabeth gave him a faltering smile.
“You ready, Dan?” Buck asked.
He lifted the shotgun level with his waist. Buck jumped to the side. “Keep it pointed at the ground! Last thing I need is to be taken down by friendly fire.”
“Sorry. Maybe I should just stick with the pistol.”
“Keep it,” Buck said. “Only point it at something you want to shoot and you’ll be fine.”
Buck gave Alexiana a big nod. She punched the final digit in the locking code, turned the handle, and opened the door wide enough to let them through. Buck and Daniel ran out the door as fast as they could. The second they were out, she closed the door with a loud, metallic bang and reentered the locking code.
“You see any changes on the Geiger counter?” she asked Elizabeth.
“The needle didn’t even move.”
“Well, that’s one thing in our favor. We were due that.�
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39
Daniel followed Buck as he bounded up the basement stairs. The big man moved better than usual. He remembered Buck getting winded when he mowed the lawn with his power mower. A couple of weeks of food rationing had obviously done him some good. They’d all lost weight, but Buck seemed to have shed the most pounds. Beer guts tended to wither away when there was no more beer to feed the beast.
They stopped in the kitchen. The cheese sandwich Alexiana had made before the bombs hit was still on the plate by the sink, the bread green and blue with mold. A warm can of Pepsi was on the table.
He thought about stories of ghost ships found floating in deep waters, the crew and passengers gone, tables set with half-eaten dinners, glasses of wine waiting to be finished. He could feel the ghosts of their former lives all around them.
Daniel flipped the light switch on the wall. Nothing happened. Buck opened the refrigerator. The light didn’t come on inside and the air flowing from it was room temperature.
“Power hasn’t come back on,” Buck said. “It’s a shame. I had five pounds of filet mignon in the freezer.”
He parted the white curtains decorated with apples over the sink with the shotgun.
It was only eleven in the morning, but the skies were dark. Heavy, gray clouds lumbered overhead.
“Storm clouds or smoke?” Daniel asked. The flesh of his face beneath the heavy gas mask was already beaded with sweat.
“Looks like a big storm to me.” Buck turned on his Geiger counter, waving the box around the room. Daniel had seen enough war and sci-fi movies to know how they worked and the soft ticks they made. The readings remained relatively silent.
“We good?”
Somehow, Buck had been able to cram his cowboy hat over his gas mask. The two accessories made his head look three times its normal size.
“All good in here,” he said.
He handed the box to Daniel and went to work undoing the four locks on the back door.
It opened with a low, elongated squeal.
“Think you need to grease those hinges,” Daniel said.
“I’ll add it to my list. You ready?”
Daniel nodded. They stepped into the yard. It could have been the suppression of sound by the gas masks, but Daniel had never heard the neighborhood so silent.
They opened the lids of Buck’s garbage cans and dropped the trash bags inside. “If anything, that really needed to be done,” Buck said. “Think I’ll skip dragging the cans to the curb, though.”
Nothing looked disturbed. The houses still stood, lawns were green, no signs of fire or destruction. Daniel spotted Gabby’s pink bike leaning against his house. Miguel’s scooter was right behind it, exactly where they’d left it.
Cautiously walking off Buck’s patio, their feet made a squishing sound when they stepped onto the grass.
“Must have been raining a lot,” Daniel said. He checked the Geiger counter’s monitor, relieved to see the needle holding still at the low end.
“That could be good or bad. Good if it’s washed away any toxins, bad if it’s seeded with the stuff, whatever that stuff may be.”
They crept between their houses, vigilant for any sights or sounds of life.
“Where the hell is everybody?” Daniel asked, licking salty sweat from his upper lip.
Buck’s head swiveled from side to side. “Either gone or in hiding.”
They stopped on the front sidewalk, looking up and down the block. All of the houses were dark. The streetlights that should have been on were off. A low rumble of thunder warned of impending rain.
Daniel shouted, “Hello! Is anybody here?”
Buck swatted his hand up and down, cutting him off. “No one will be able to hear you with the mask on. I don’t want to call attention to ourselves just yet, either.”
Daniel turned to his wife’s Corolla. He’d taken his and her key rings before he left the shelter.
“I’ll see if the car will start,” he said.
The sound of the car door opening was like a gunshot in the dead of night. He was sure it could be heard for miles. He got behind the wheel, saw her rosary beads hung over the rearview mirror, the curled picture of them all at a family reunion tucked into a seam in the dashboard.
He put the key in the ignition and turned.
40
“Where are Dad and Buck?”
Rey startled Elizabeth and Alexiana. He leaned against the bunkhouse door frame. He looked so frail. Elizabeth could see his pulse pounding on the side of his neck.
“You shouldn’t be up,” she said, helping him to a seat. She placed her hand on his forehead. He was still burning up, even though she’d given him Tylenol just two hours ago.
“Did they go out?” he insisted.
Alexiana said, “Yes, about ten minutes ago. They wanted to see how things were and whether it was safe for all of us to leave the shelter.”
He used his finger to pick at a groove in the table’s surface. “They went to see if there was anyone around to help me and Dakota.”
Elizabeth wrapped an arm around his shoulders. She could feel his bones beneath his simmering skin. “What makes you say that?”
He turned to her with bloodshot, glassy eyes. “I’m not always sleeping. I can hear what’s going on. I’m not saying them going out there for us is a bad thing, Ma. Dakota is real sick, sicker than me. Maybe they can find different medicine if they can’t find a doctor. I just wish I could have gone with them.”
“Even if you weren’t sick, Buck wouldn’t have let you go,” Alexiana said. Before Rey could protest, she added, “He thinks it’s important to leave a man in charge. He’s kind of old-fashioned that way. Until him and your dad get back, that’s you.”
Rey was hit with a coughing fit that left him gasping for air. Elizabeth rubbed his back, trying to keep him calm. She thought of giving him a puff from one of Miguel’s inhalers, but he settled down on his own.
“We got anything to eat?” he asked.
Elizabeth gave her neighbor a look of silent thanks, then searched for an MRE and some water.
41
Buck watched Daniel turn the key again and again. When nothing happened, not even the click of the alternator, he slammed the wheel with his palms and got out of the car.
“Maybe it’s been sitting around too long,” he said.
“I’ll try my truck next.” Buck went to his driveway and opened the door to his Explorer.
“Zippo,” he said. “This thing’s deader than Saddam. I suspect none of the cars out here are gonna start. More to add to the case of an EMP explosive being at least one of the little surprises.”
Daniel moved the shotgun from his left to his right hand. The man looked supremely uncomfortable handling the firearm. Buck wondered if he’d been wrong to make him carry it. He worried Dan would shoot himself by accident in the act of defending himself. Even before today, that was something he’d worried about. The Padillas were good people, not exactly straight from The Donna Reed Show, but damn close. Did they have what it would take to survive? Daniel was a nice guy, but a little soft. Buck hoped somewhere inside the man were some hard edges, waiting to surface.
Light patters of rain started to come down, obscuring his view out of the plastic visor of the gas mask.
“These Bugout for the Dugout bags waterproof ?” Daniel asked.
“Yep.”
“Good. I want to at least walk to Dr. Manetti’s office over on Kimball, see if there’s a chance he’s still there and okay. If he is, we can either bring him to Rey and Dakota or them to him.”
Buck grunted. “Shit, Dan, doctors didn’t make house calls before everything went to hell. We should look around for anything that’ll make it easy to take Rey and the girl to him, like a wheelbarrow. They don’t seem up to much walking.”
Daniel scratched at his neck, turned, and started walking up the street.
Most of the houses they passed had drawn blinds. The entire neighborhood was comprised of
one- and two-family houses, all stacked in neat little rows. One thing Buck liked about it was that no two were exactly alike. No cookie cutters here. Tudors, Capes, ranches, you name it, they all lived in architecturally disjointed harmony.
It had been the middle of a pretty nice day when everything happened. If their neighbors had fled, they wouldn’t have taken the time to close the blinds. Buck wondered how many sets of eyes were secretly following them. They had to know it was him. How many other people in Yonkers walked around with a cowboy hat?
There was that one guy who lived by the diner, but he always wore a white hat with a tan band. Sometimes he’d stick a hawk’s feather under the band.
“Dan, hold on a sec. I want to check in on Mrs. Fumarelli.”
Mrs. Fumarelli was one of their oldest neighbors and the last remaining member of the original families that had moved in when the neighborhood was constructed. A widow of over twenty years, she lived with Bruce, her mutt of an attack dog that was an ornery son of a bitch to everyone but his elderly owner.
“We should have taken her to the shelter,” Dan said as they walked up her brick steps.
“No sense looking for regrets. There wasn’t time to think.”
Buck knocked on the door. He waited, then knocked again, harder and longer. Usually, if anyone so much as stepped onto her front porch, Bruce set off like a hell hound, barking at the door.
“I’ll check around back,” Daniel said.
Stepping onto the porch, Buck tried to peer between the blinds. All he could see was the lower back end of a couch and an area rug that looked to be as thin as loose-leaf paper. He tapped on the window with the barrel of the shotgun.
He was about to see if he could lift the window when Daniel shouted, followed by the distinctive blast of the shotgun.
42
“I have to go,” Miguel pleaded outside the curtain.