Sunfall (Book 1): Journey

by D. Gideon

  “There’s a hole in the gas tank,” Marco said.

  “What do you mean a hole in the gas tank?” Mel said. “I didn’t hit anything on the way back last night.”

  Corey leaned against the truck and sighed. “Someone spiked it,” he said. “Screwdriver or a strong knife is all you need.”

  “Shit,” I said. I took the flashlight back as Marco stood, and bent down to check the car next to us.

  “They got this one, too,” I said. “I bet they got all of them.”

  “So they stole my gas?” Mel said, voice rising. “Some asshole put a hole in my tank and stole my gas?”

  “I should’ve thought of this,” Marco said. “I’ve seen it happen a lot. Even if your car’s inside a brick wall and a gate.”

  Josh waved his foot under the center of the bumper, and the hatch rose. Corey got out of its way.

  “So what the hell do we do now?” Mel asked. “Can we plug it somehow?”

  “Even if we could, Mel, we’ve got nowhere to get gas,” Corey said. “The pumps aren’t running.”

  Josh shouldered his pack and pulled his suitcase out. Setting the suitcase onto the ground, he pulled out the bat and leaned it against the bumper.

  “Sorry guys, but I can’t stick around to figure this out. I’ve got to get going,” he said.

  “Wait for a while, Josh,” I said. “Maybe we can bum a ride with Amy or something.”

  “We cannot fit in that girl’s car,” Mel said. “Hell, she can barely fit in that car. It’s a tiny little convertible.”

  Josh shook his head. “I’ve got to stick to the plan,” he said.

  “So you’re just going to walk off into the city by yourself?” Marco asked.

  Josh grinned and pointed. “Nah. I’m going across the golf course and through the woods back there until I hit the highway. I’m not going near town. I’m not that dumb.” He turned and opened his arms, and I stepped forward and gave him a tight hug.

  “You be careful,” I said. “I wish you’d wait a few hours.”

  “I’m already late. I gotta go,” he said, turning to Mel for a hug. She reached up and hugged him, and when he let go, she pulled him back in for another one.

  “You’d better not get into trouble, Ginger,” she said. “I can’t come traipsing across the state just to kick somebody’s ass.” She kissed him on the cheek and let him go.

  Corey stepped forward and extended a hand. “If we figure something out, you want us to come looking for you? Pick you up?”

  Josh stuck his hand out to return the shake, and grunted as Corey pulled him into a bear hug.

  “I’ll be fine, guys, really,” Josh squeaked as Corey thumped his backpack. “Eagle Scout, remember? I do great in the woods. Besides, I’ve got this.” He reached down and wiggled the bat.

  “Where did you have that? I don’t remember seeing it in the room,” Corey said.

  “I keep it under the mattress. I keep a baseball and a glove under there too, so if there was a room check and they claim it’s a weapon, I could say it’s just for when I play baseball,” Josh said.

  “But would-be surgeons don’t play baseball,” Mel said.

  “The campus police don’t know my major,” Josh said. “And for anyone who does, like Todd—not that he’d care if I had some type of weapon in there—I can say it’s a memento from when I played with my grandpa as a kid, and it’s my way of having him here at college with me. We got the ball and glove from a thrift store, so they look really old and worn out. I’ve had them with me at school for years. They always pass the room checks when I start talking about my grandpa and get choked up.”

  “Well look at you, being all devious,” Mel said. “I didn’t know you had it in you. I’m actually a little proud.” She ruffled his hair and he grinned.

  “Wish we had a way for you to let us know when you get home,” Marco said. “This just doesn’t seem right, letting you walk off with all this going on.”

  “You know what, I do…” Josh fished around in his pockets. “Crap. Anybody got a pen?”

  “I’ve got a Sharpie,” I said, pulling it from my pocket and handing it over.

  “My Mom’s a HAM operator,” Josh said. “I’ll give you her call sign. If you find someone with a HAM radio, they can get a hold of her. Well, once the interference is over. Got paper?”

  I pushed up the sleeve of my summer jacket and held out my arm. “Write it here,” I said. “So we don’t lose it.” I handed the flashlight to Mel.

  “You sure?” Josh asked.

  When I nodded, Josh carefully wrote some weird numbers and letters on my arm while Mel held the flashlight on us. “There. That’s her call sign and the frequency her and Dad use when he’s at work,” he said. “You give that to a HAM and they’ll know what to do with it.”

  “Looks like code to me,” Mel said.

  “It is, kinda,” Josh said.

  “My turn,” I said, taking the Sharpie. “Sleeve up.”

  Giving me a confused look, Josh pushed up his sleeve and held out his arm. The Sharpie dragged across his skin and I wasn’t able to write as clearly as he had, but I made it legible, at least.

  “That’s my address,” I said. “You guys are only half an hour out of the city. If you have to leave, for any reason, you can come to my house.”

  “Are you sure?” Josh asked, eyes wide. “There’s four of us, Rip. That’s a lot of mouths to feed.”

  I shrugged. “Safety in numbers, right? We’ll figure it out. You just come if you need to. Don’t hesitate.”

  He stared at his arm for a moment, then shook his head. “We’re probably overreacting, right? It won’t get that bad out where I’m at.”

  “Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it,” Corey said.

  “Yeah,” Josh said, his voice barely a whisper. He looked up and let out a deep breath. Pulling his headlamp out of a pocket, he strapped it on and picked up his things.

  “Okay, here goes nothing. Good luck on finding a ride, you guys.”

  We repeated our goodbyes and he walked off into the darkness, headed for the huge golf course that bordered one side of the campus.

  “So what do we do now?” Mel asked, hands on her hips.

  “We walk,” I said, pulling my Get Home Bag out of the back. I frowned at the bucket that held my other clothing. It would be nice to take it with me, but now that we had no vehicle, it would have to stay. I had plans of other things I’d be carrying later on, which I hadn’t let Mel and Marco know about yet.

  “We start walking now, and we find a place to sleep just before dawn,” I said. “Move at night, so it’s harder to see us. Less of a target.”

  “Driving out of here at night is one thing,” Marco said, “but walking out of here at night is something completely different.” He waved a hand at the bags in the truck. “It’s harder to outrun someone when you’re carrying your life on your back.”

  “We need more info first,” Corey said. “Be right back.”

  He spun and jogged over to the military vehicle. The man on top barked something, and the two on the ground came alert, shouldering their rifles.

  “Whoa whoa whoa!” I heard Corey shout. He thrust his hands into the air. “Just coming to ask you guys something! Put the guns down!”

  I couldn’t hear their response, but when their rifles stayed trained on Corey, I started forward. Marco stopped me, stepping in front of me and grabbing my shoulders.

  “Don’t make them any more nervous, Rip. Stay here.” He pushed me back a little. “Trust me. I’ve lived through this.”

  I glared at him. “Don’t give me that bullshit. You’re from Portugal. It’s peaceful in Portugal.”

  His brows came together and his face grew hard. In all the time that I’d known him, I’d never seen him like this.

  “I was born in Portugal, and my family is back in Portugal now,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I’ve always lived there.”

  “Well where else have y
ou lived?” Mel asked. “Someplace with soldiers in the streets?”

  Marco looked away. “Yeah. Someplace with soldiers in the streets,” he said, his voice low. He looked back at me. “Just give them room, Ripley. He’ll be fine.”

  I could see Corey’s silhouette. He’d turned around, and one of the soldiers had slung his rifle and was frisking him. After pulling something out of Corey’s pocket and examining it, the soldier handed it back.

  “He’s clean,” the soldier called, and his partner lowered his rifle. Corey started talking, his arms animatedly gesturing back towards the Suburban. The soldier shook his head and started talking, pointing across campus and then over at the parking lot. Corey pointed out into the city, and again the soldier shook his head, pointing up at the sky as he responded.

  “What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall,” Mel said. Then she snorted. “‘’Cept there ain’t no walls out here.”

  That broke the tension, and we all started chuckling. Mel sat down in the back of the truck and pulled out her cigarettes, lighting one. I sat down next to her, sliding my pack off of my shoulders and dropping it behind me.

  “You know, if we do have to walk, we’re gonna have to leave most of your shit here,” I said. “You can’t drag those things all the way to my-“

  Mel shushed me with a wave of her hand. “Stop yapping about what we can’t take and start thinking of who has a car that’ll fit it all,” she said. “Preferably one that some asshole-“ this she yelled- “didn’t put a hole in.”

  We sat quietly for a few minutes. Marco stood in front of us, arms crossed and feet spread, watching the interaction between Corey and the soldiers. Mel puffed on her cigarette and swung her feet, looking back across campus where we saw that the stream of students walking around was getting steadier. Maybe they weren’t leaving; maybe they were just going over to Fraternity Row to party. It was Saturday night, after all. Cars from deeper within the campus were pulling up to the intersection, and to my relief, after a minute of talk between a soldier and the driver, they were waved through.

  I alternated between watching Corey and looking up at the sky. The ribbons of colors undulated slowly, phasing from blue, to green, to yellow. Across the horizon there was still a deep red glow, and here and there streaks of red would spike down through the other colors and then fade away. As frightening as it was, it was mesmerizing and beautiful. The air still smelled of burned wood and plastic, but surrounded by trees as we were in this little parking lot, I couldn’t see if there were any fires still burning in the city. Maybe they’d all burned themselves out by now. I wished they’d turn that big generator off so I could hear what was going on. I felt like I was in a bubble straining under pressure; any minute now the bubble would burst. Sound, sight, smell—they could all give me advanced warning, but I was blind on two of those fronts. It made me jumpy.

  Corey finally came jogging back over to us. His face was grim.

  “They’re saying if we’re going to walk, don’t head out until it’s light,” he said. “Said it’s a madhouse out there and if it goes like last night, everyone will start crashing around dawn and sleep until noon or so.”

  “How can they tell, just being parked here at Campus Drive?” I asked.

  “They’ve got tents and stuff inside the stadium,” he said, pointing in that direction. “And those guys tell me they’ve got spotters up on top of the skybox watching the city. They can see clear to Baltimore and D.C. from there.”

  I had an idea. “We should go up on Tar Beach and see for ourselves,” I said.

  “What did they say about my truck? Did they see who stole my gas?” Mel asked.

  Corey shook his head. “They said there were groups of two or three guys walking through the lot more than a few times today, like they were just bored and stretching their legs. Then about half an hour ago they came back, and stood in the center of the lot talking to each other. The soldiers had no idea anyone spiked any tanks.”

  “Distraction,” Marco said. “The guys talking keep the attention, while the other guys drop down and crawl from car to car.”

  “They couldn’t see that they were carrying gas cans?” Mel said.

  “It was too dark under the trees, and they could only see that they were carrying something; they couldn’t see what it was without shining a spotlight on them,” Corey explained. “The soldiers figured it was suitcases or something. Either way, when I said they should have done something, they said policing the parking lot isn’t their job.”

  Mel’s head rocked back and her eyes grew wide. “Not their job? They’re policing who pulls into the parking lot, aren’t they? They sure as hell policed me last night!”

  “The Governor issued a State of Emergency and called them into action last night as soon as the CME hit,” Corey said. “Technically their job is just to provide security for who gets onto state property, and to ‘secure assets’. Policing the lot is Campus Security’s job.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Mel said, hopping down. “They’re right here next to the lot.”

  “That’s separating the military from the police,” Marco said. “It’s important.”

  Mel pulled out her backpack and laptop bag and started wriggling into the multiple straps. “Important enough that they let a bunch of frat boys come steal gas from all these cars and now we can’t leave?”

  “A military’s job is to wage war. A policeman’s job is to enforce the law. You don’t want the guys who wage war enforcing the laws,” Marco said. “It’s not pretty.”

  “When you’re trained to kill targets, everything looks like a target?” I said.

  “Exactly,” Marco said. He moved out of the way so Corey could get to his things.

  Mel was putting her long hair up into a messy bun so it wouldn’t get caught in the straps, but her brows were drawn together.

  “And when you’re trained to arrest criminals, everyone looks like a criminal,” she said. “That’s why we’ve got black guys getting frisked because they’re walking down the street with a latte in a rich part of the city.” She waved a hand in front of her face, something she did whenever she wanted to stop her own train of thought. “Never mind. I get it.”

  “So we head up to Tar Beach and take a look?” I asked. “See if it looks as bad as they say?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Corey said.

  “Just leave my suitcases in here,” Mel said. “We’ll get ‘em on the way out. I ain’t dragging that shit back across campus twice.”

  Marco shut the truck’s hatch and we started walking.

  “Hey now, we dragged two of those for you,” I said, smiling.

  “Well if you’re offering…” she started.

  “No, no, that’s okay,” I said, raising my hands. “They can stay.”

  She held up a finger. “I am not saying you were right, by the way. It’s just more efficient to leave them here.”

  “Mmhmm, sure,” I said, trying not to smile.

  “Melanie Rhodes, Queen of Efficiency,” Corey said with a chuckle. “We might be running for our lives, and she’s got five bags.”

  “Damn straight,” Mel said, taking out a cigarette and lighting it. She ducked under a low tree branch and we followed suit. “I’ve got so much efficiency, other people gotta carry it for me.”

  She wiggled her eyebrows at me and grinned. I grinned back and shook my head.

  “Queen of Bullshit, maybe,” I said.

  “Ain’t no use in doing something half-assed,” she said. “So if I’m gonna bullshit, you’d best believe I’m gonna be the Queen of Bullshitting.” She raised her arms in a wide V.

  “I am your Queen!” She shouted.

  Marco spoke up in an effeminate voice. “Well I didn’t vote for you!”

  That’s all it took. We devolved into loudly reciting Monty Python quotes all the way back to the dorm. Some passing students shouted lines along with us. A few changed course to give us a wide berth. It didn’t matter. We kept going, loud a
nd proud.

  Anything to keep our minds off the thought of walking all the way home.

  CHAPTER 13

  Saturday, September 1st

  College Park, Maryland

  “There’s another fire,” Todd said, handing back my binoculars. I pointed them in the direction he’d been looking and saw the flames licking out of a window.

  “Another car?” Marco asked. He was sitting on the gravel by my feet, his back against the low wall.

  “Apartment building,” Todd said. “Probably some idiot knocked over a candle.”

  Up on Tar Beach, the smell of smoke was strong. Mel had only been able to stand it for about ten minutes before retreating to our room; it had given her a splitting headache.

  Corey leaned on the wall, looking through his own binoculars. “It’s getting worse,” he said. “I just watched three guys walk down a street and knock the driver’s side mirror off of every parked car with bats. All these people out on their stoops, and nobody stopped them.”

  “Would you take on three guys with bats?” Todd asked. “Liable to get your head beat in.”

  I scanned the small patch of Route 1 that I could see between buildings. I could see some storefronts topped with apartments. So far, there hadn’t been any activity there other than people walking or driving by. If there was looting going on, it wasn’t where I could see it. We could clearly hear AC/DC’s Back In Black blasting from Fraternity Row; they must have been using the sound system in one of their cars. I wondered if the pool party Jeff had mentioned at dinner had already started.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “All these people outside, but nobody’s looting.”

  “They’re not looting yet,” Todd corrected. “They think the lights will come back on while they’re still inside a store.”

  “If the lights come on, the security cameras come on,” Marco said.

  Corey sighed and stood up, twisting to soothe the ache in his back. “I’ve seen some people looking in store windows, pointing at stuff. Believe me, they’re thinking about looting.”

  “Maybe we’re not giving them enough credit,” I said, putting the binoculars down and turning around. “I mean, look at what happened in Japan after the tsunami. They knew the power wasn’t coming back on for a long time, and there wasn’t any looting over there.”