Mass Extinction Event (Book 9): Days 195 to 202

by Cross, Amy

  A moment later, the train begins to slow, and I realize that we must be getting close to the station. I rub my eyes, before getting to my feet and straightening my shirt and pants, and as I do so I make a mental note to take a wash as soon as I can. Sleeping in a train seat has made me feel pretty dirty.

  Nearby, Riley is also starting to stir. Whereas I slept sitting upright, he managed to arrange himself across a couple of seats. His arrangements certainly look to have been more comfortable than mine.

  “Are we there yet?” he asks groggily.

  “I think we're pulling into a station,” I reply as I double-check that everything's secure in my backpack. “The guy I asked yesterday said that this is my best bet for getting to Oklahoma.”

  “So you're gonna try to hitch a ride?”

  “I guess.” I hesitate for a moment as I realize that my plan really isn't too well-formed. “I'll figure something out. See you around.”

  With that, I haul the backpack over my shoulder and head to the door.

  “Wait!”

  I turn and see that Riley's frantically gathering his things.

  “Do you mind if I come with you?” he asks. “From where we are, I figure going through Oklahoma's gonna be my best way into Kansas.”

  “Sure thing,” I reply, as the train slows to a crawl and I see a station outside. “It can't be that hard to find a ride. Someone has to be heading out way.”

  ***

  “Dallas, huh?” I say as I step out the front of the station and look both ways along a dusty road. “We can't be much more than about a hundred miles from the Oklahoma border.”

  “Dallas is over there,” Riley points out. “This place is some distribution hub in the suburbs. And it looks like we're the only ones getting off here.”

  I look toward the gleaming skyscrapers in the distance, or rather toward what's left of them. I have no idea what happened in Dallas over the past six months, but the city looks to have taken some huge hits. Most of the buildings have lost their upper floors, and there's a foul, plastic-like smell in the air. I never thought I'd see a city that looked worse than Boston looked a while back, but Dallas is a wreck.

  “Are you guys looking for something?” a voice asks.

  Turning, I see a woman standing in the doorway of a nearby building, watching us keenly. She's young, maybe in her early twenties, and she's wearing a tattered dress that's ripped in several places.

  “I saw you getting off that train,” she continues, stepping out into the sunshine and coming toward us. She's barefoot, and there are cuts around her ankles. “We don't get many people coming out this way, not apart from the shippers.”

  I step toward her.

  “Hold on, there,” Riley says, grabbing my arm and holding me back.

  “What's wrong?” the woman asks, before laughing a little. “There's no need to be like that. My name's Katrina and I just saw you two arriving. There's not a lot here. If you're looking for someone, maybe for relatives who might still be alive, I can help.”

  “We're just passing through,” Riley replies cautiously. “All we're looking for is a ride north.”

  “I can help with that too,” she says, before gesturing toward the doorway. “Why don't you come inside and we can talk?”

  “Let's talk out here,” Riley says.

  “You're suspicious of me,” she replies. “I get it. What's wrong, do you think you're gonna get jumped if you come inside? Do you think I've got a couple of thugs waiting in there to take you down?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind,” Riley tells her.

  “You're cute,” she says. “I can see how you've lasted this long.” She looks at me. “You, on the other hand, seem a little too trusting. You'd have come right into my place, wouldn't you?”

  “No,” I lie, although I immediately realize that I sound too defensive.

  “Maybe you two should talk it out for a while,” she says, “and decide whether or not you want to come into my little den. I can help you, although it's gonna cost you. I take many forms of payment, and I offer pretty much any service you might want. I call it post-apocalyptic capitalism, and it's kept me alive so far. There aren't many people in this neck of the woods, but there's me, and I know everything there is to know.”

  “We'll be fine, thanks,” Riley says. “We're just going to follow this road for a while.”

  “Which way?”

  He hesitates, before nodding to our left.

  “Oh,” she replies with a faint smile, “well, okay. You guys can go that way if you want.”

  “What's along there?” I ask.

  “I could tell you,” she replies, “but then I'd lose a lot of my leverage in this situation, wouldn't I?”

  “Then maybe we'll go the other way,” I tell her.

  “That would have a very different outcome for you boys,” she says, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

  Hearing a loud hissing sound, I turn and see that the train is pulling out of the station.

  “Seems you two are committed to being here,” Katrina continues. “There's only about one train through here every nine or ten days. You got somewhere to stay?”

  “We'll be fine,” Riley says.

  “You got food and water?”

  “We don't need your help,” Riley replies.

  “I'm not forcing you to do anything you don't wanna do,” she says with a sigh. “That's kinda one of the cornerstones of my little operation here. Everything's a choice. You wanna go up the road that way, you go. You wanna go the other way, that's fine too. I promise I'll think of you guys later today, as the sun goes down, and wonder how you get on.” She takes a step back. “If you change your minds, you know where I'll be.”

  With that, she withdraws back into the shadows inside the building, leaving us once again standing alone in the baking heat.

  “Which way should we go, then?” I ask after a moment.

  He looks left, then right, and then he turns and starts walking to the left.

  “How do you know that's the right way?” I ask.

  “There's no right or wrong way,” he replies. “As long as we keep moving, we'll be fine. Eventually we have to find someone who'll help us.”

  I pause for a few seconds, before glancing at the open doorway. For a moment, I swear I see Katrina's face in there, watching from the darkness, but then she's gone and I realize that Riley's already getting way ahead of me. I glance around, to make sure that nobody else is watching us, and then I hurry after him.

  “Hey, man!” I call out. “Wait! I'm coming!”

  Thomas

  Several hours later, as the midday sun really starts to heat up and bake us, we finally reach an intersection.

  “There!” Riley says, pointing at some signs hanging high above the road. “Ardmore, Oklahoma.” He turns to me. “We picked the right way after all.”

  “I guess we did,” I reply, as I look all around and see absolutely no sign of life. “Are we going to have to walk it, though? That'll take days.”

  “No-one said this journey was going to be easy,” he reminds me. “And you're only going to Oklahoma, whereas I've gotta keep going all through into Kansas. The top of Kansas, too. So if you think you've got it hard, you're welcome to come with me all the way to a little place in Kansas called Colby. We've got a couple of museums you might like, and one hell of a barn.”

  “Thanks, but I've got my own plans,” I reply, before looking along the road and contemplating the long walk we're about to start. “You know, deep down I kinda assumed that we'd bump into someone who'd have a truck, and that somehow we'd get a ride to close to where I'm going, and that things would sort of... work out.”

  “Miracles do happen,” he points out, “but only a fool would rely on them.”

  “I know.” I glance down at my sneakers, which are looking pretty scuffed these days. “I think I have a hole developing right under the heel of my right foot. These things aren't gonna last forever.”

  “You'd bette
r hope they'll get you home,” he replies, as we both set off along the road. “I would not want to be doing this trip barefoot.”

  Thomas

  We walk and we walk and we walk, and then we walk some more, and I don't know how many hours pass. My legs are starting to ache, my feet are well beyond that point, and I think the back of my neck is getting pretty badly burnt by the afternoon sun.

  And Riley doesn't stop talking the whole way.

  “I think I read a Stephen King book about people walking,” he says, somehow still managing to find things to ramble on about. “It was about these people who were forced to walk until there was only one of them left. I think I'm starting to understand how they must have felt.”

  “When do you think we should stop and eat?” I ask, just as my belly starts to rumble.

  “I told you, we need to pace these things out. We need to stick to a strict schedule. Military-style discipline, Tommy. That's the best way to get through this.”

  “I need to eat soon.”

  “We'll stop when we reach that sign ahead, right on the horizon.”

  “But that'll take -”

  “Military discipline, Tommy,” he says again. “Trust me, there's no -”

  Suddenly he stops. I stop too, and I see that he's staring at something a little way off the road. I follow his gaze, and finally I spot a swarm of flies buzzing above a shape on the ground.

  “Well, look at that,” Riley says with a grin, turning to me. “I think we found ourselves a corpse.”

  He heads over, hurrying down the side of the road and over toward the flies. I hesitate, before following him, and I make sure to hang back a little.

  “This is a ripe one,” he calls out to me, as he waves flies away from his face. “Looks like a man, he's been pretty much baked in the sun. No idea how long he's been dead for, but I don't think it's been forever. And Thomas, there's good news.” He turns to me. “He's got a decent pair of sneakers.”

  “I'm not stealing a dead man's shoes,” I reply.

  “How are your feet doing?”

  “Sore,” I admit.

  “Bleeding yet?”

  “No. I mean, I don't think so.”

  “You don't want them to start bleeding,” he points out. “Open wounds are not a good idea in the present situation. You could end up with an infection, and then what? Do you know how easy it is to die from just a scratch right now? I bet you don't even have any medical stuff in your backpack, do you?”

  “I'm not stealing shoes from a corpse,” I say again.

  He mutters something to himself, before stepping closer to the body and crouching down. Reaching out, he starts checking the dead man's pockets.

  “Seriously?” I say with a sigh. “This seems very wrong.”

  “All's fair in love and war,” he replies, and now he's really rooting deep in the pockets. Finally he pulls out a wallet and opens it to take a look. “Tommy, meet Mr. Brian Flood. Weird name, huh? Fifty-eight years old, from Dallas.” He starts opening the wallet's various compartments, and after a moment he takes out some cash. “Five dollars,” he announces. “I'm not sure what good it is to anyone at the moment. Do you think it's worth more or less than it was worth in the old days?”

  “I have no idea,” I tell him, as I take a couple of steps forward. The noise of the buzzing flies is immense. “It still feels really wrong to be doing this.”

  “And look at this,” he says, pulling out a set of car keys.

  We both glance around, but there's no sign of a car anywhere.

  “I guess that would have been too easy,” Riley points out., “but hey, gotta keep an eye out for those miracles.”

  He tosses the keys aside and gets to his feet.

  “So?” he continues.

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “Let's get going.”

  “What about his shoes?”

  “I'm not taking his shoes.”

  “He's not using them anymore.”

  “It's still stealing!” I point out. “From a corpse!”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you're trying too hard to be a good person?” he mutters, before stepping around the corpse and then reaching down to pull off one of the shoes. “The rules have changed, Tommy, and you need to get with the program.”

  He struggles for a moment, before pulling the first shoe off and then starting on the second.

  “The world is not going to wait for you to catch up to the new reality,” he continues. “It's amazing that you've made it this far, but I guess there must be a little more to you than there appears.” He pulls hard on the second shoe, trying to get it off. “Maybe I'm a little too extreme in the other direction, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Because in the world as it is now, being sorry often means you're gonna be dead real soon.”

  He pulls the second shoe off and gets to his feet, and then he comes over to me.

  “I got you a present,” he adds. “New shoes. You can thank me another time.”

  Staring at him, I suddenly realize that he reminds me of my brother. Not just in his attitude, but also a little in his appearance too. The realization is sobering, and I feel a little awkward for a moment. I miss Joe so much, and I've often wondered how different the past six months would have been if he'd just managed to survive. In fact, there have been times when I've been downright angry at him for dying. Now, as I continue to stare at Riley, I can't shake the feeling that maybe he's telling me something that Joe would also have told me.

  “Please don't tell me that you're gonna turn them down,” Riley says.

  I look down at the shoes, and then I look back at him.

  “Don't get all holier-than-thou,” he continues. “They're good shoes, Tommy. They'll protect your feet. Isn't that what's important?”

  “Sure,” I reply cautiously, “but... there's one other problem.”

  “And what's that?”

  “The right shoe...”

  “Huh?”

  He holds them up, and then I see the realization on his face. In his hurry to prove a point, he apparently didn't notice that when he pulled off the second shoe, the dead man's entire foot and part of the ankle came with it.

  “It's alright,” he says, clearly grossed out as flies buzz all around us, “we can just, kinda... scoop that out.”

  Thomas

  “They're squelchy.”

  “They're not squelchy.”

  “They are!”

  “Tommy, you're -”

  “And don't call me Tommy,” I add, unable to hide my irritation for even a moment longer. “It's Thomas.”

  “Thomas, the shoes are not squelchy, you're imagining things.” Riley sighs as we make our way across another intersection. “That foot came out whole! It was dry as bone! It basically was just a bone. Plus, it was in a sock. That's, like, a whole extra layer of protection.”

  “I think there were maggots in there.”

  “I checked, there were no maggots.”

  “Then why -”

  “It's all in your head,” he continues with another sigh. “The mind is a powerful thing.”

  “They don't even fit properly,” I add. “They're loose, they'll end up rubbing and then I'll get a sore spot.”

  “They're a better bet for now,” he replies. “Just focus on the positives and -”

  Suddenly he stops and holds a hand out against my chest, forcing me to stop too. Looking ahead, I'm startled to see a fast foot restaurant perched on the corner.

  “Moolio's?” Riley says, sounding puzzled. “Who in their right mind would name a burger joint Moolio's?”

  “I've been to one before,” I reply. “There are a few of them around. They're alright. Well, they were, back in the old days.”

  We stand in silence for a moment, and I guess we're each contemplating whether there might be anything valuable in the place. I know the odds of finding food are pretty much zero, since anything left behind would have rotted away by now, but the windows looks to be secure and I guess it's always
possible that nobody has been inside since the world began to collapse.

  “Come on,” Riley says suddenly, stepping onto the grass and making his way toward the restaurant.

  “We don't know that it's safe!” I call out.

  “And we won't find out by standing around like a pair of lemons,” he replies. “You can wait outside if you want, but I'm going to take a look. Maybe there's some of that weird burger cheese sitting around. You know that stuff can survive forever, right?”

  ***

  “Great,” Riley says a few minutes later, as we step through the main door and into the restaurant, “spiders. I hate spiders.”

  He's right, there are a lot of spiders on the floor. I have no idea what attracted them here, but I guess this whole mass extinction event has been good news for some species. The spiders scurry away under a bench as we get closer, and I turn and look around to see all the empty tables and chairs. There's a lot of light in here, thanks to the floor-to-ceiling windows that cover most of the walls.

  “No corpses,” Riley points out. “That's good, I guess. It means I don't have to listen to you whine while I rob them.”

  Before I can reply, he vaults the main counter and lands hard on the other side, and he immediately starts checking the cash registers to see if any money was left behind. As he chuckles to himself, I'm struck once again by his similarity to Joe. At first I figured maybe I was just imagining things, but Riley reminds me so much of my brother, it's unreal.

  “Nothing,” he says with a sigh, before turning and making his way back into the food preparation area. “Seriously? I refuse to believe that there's nothing useful in this dump. Come on, Tommy, let's take a look around.”

  “It's Thomas,” I reply as he disappears from view, even though I know there's really no point. “Not -”

  Suddenly there's a loud crashing sound somewhere in the rear of the restaurant.

  “That was just me!” Riley yells. “I knocked over some pans.”

  I start wandering across the dining area. The seats have been left neatly tucked at the tables, which suggests to me that maybe this place wasn't the scene of any major drama. There's a musty smell near the bins, and when I open the lid I see rotten food at the bottom of the bag, but otherwise this Moolio's restaurant is in a good condition. In fact, with a little cleaning, it'd be ready to open.