by Holly Hook
I hated that I was this shocked.
This weak. I'd seen this before. I should be able to deal with this by now. But the little kid...it must made it seem too real all of a sudden.
They got the bodies moved. I counted the seconds it took them to get the first one out the door, then the second. Fifteen. Something fell over in an aisle with a muffled sound. A bag of chips, maybe, and then another. I counted three. I was Count Laney. Numbers were sane. This was not.
"It's okay," Alana said. "They're gone. We're out of the sun and free to raid the place." Something about the way she spoke was different now.
"I told you," I said. "I knew they'd be dead."
Alana sighed. "So did I. I was just trying to lighten up the situation. It's what people do when things like this happen. You have to. My uncle told me that in the hospital they have to have a dark sense of humor in the ICU. You know, to deal with people dying all the time."
"I suppose so," I said. I thought about Gina and her jokes. Alana had her optimism. I had my numbers and my morbid drawings. That was it. Math. I wasn't sure what Jerome had, but being the only guy he had the unspoken role of being the one who wasn't bothered by all this, or bothered the least.
"Should we take our suits off?" Alana asked. Behind her, Gina and Jerome spoke out on the covered deck. I didn't know where they'd taken the four bodies and I wasn't going to look.
"We need to," I said, knowing what we'd smell the moment we did.
She unzipped mine. As soon as she did, the smell came in, but it wasn't as bad as it had been just outside the Visitor Center. There were fewer dead people here. The outside gas station doors hung open, letting in air as if the clerk had known they were all going to die here. There was just a pair of swinging western ones blocking the way now. He was courteous, opening them up like that. Or maybe he'd just been hoping a passing ambulance would swing by and take the mom and the kid to a hospital.
They weren't suffering anymore. I repeated that to myself over and over.
I stepped out of my suit. It felt good to be out. I had forgotten what moving air felt like since I'd stepped in. I helped Alana out of hers and the two of us raided the drinks. I chugged down a bottled water--caffeine might dehydrate me more--and followed it with some orange juice. The splitting headache began to vanish as Alana and I chased the drinks down with beef sticks and cheese puffs. Junk food. It was the best meal I'd ever had since David had decided our fates.
"I feel so much better," Alana said, sitting against a slushy drink machine. It was dripping red liquid, liquid like cherry blood now that the contents had all melted inside. "Why are Jerome and Gina hanging out there? They need to come in and enjoy all this."
"I agree," I said. "Gina must hate me."
Alana didn't say anything at first. The light was getting darker, but I could see that she was trying to look away. A lie was coming.
"I don't know," she said at last. "She's got to understand that it was an emergency. You forgot that the door to the ladder could lock from the inside. She has to realize that. We had plenty of time to think. If you're worried, you can always just apologize. You didn't want David to hurt her, after all."
"I can't."
"Why?"
"Too...complicated."
"Complicated? It's just a simple I'm sorry."
"Well, we don't know what's going to happen. It's best not to get too close to each other if you know what I mean."
"We've been best friends forever. BFF." Alana leaned forward. "I know you're still hurting from...you know...but you can't let that suck the joy out of the rest of your life. Your mom wouldn't have wanted that. I'm sure she wants you to be happy, Laney. I want you to be happy."
"That's a tall order."
"I know it is," Alana said after a pause. "But we have something to look forward to. Getting to town is one. Getting to the eastern side of the country is another. Your dad might be over there."
I hadn't even thought about him on the journey out here. He had left my mind, chased away by thirst and exhaustion.
"You're too scared to hope, Laney. You're the only one here who has something to hope for and you're blowing it." Alana sniffed. She was close to tears.
I searched around for some travel tissues and found them hanging up on a rack near the counter. The smell was still lingering here along with their phone. Countless people had died holding onto them. It said something.
"Blowing it!" Alana yelled.
"Here," I said, handing her the package. She tore it open and blew her nose. "I'm sorry. You're right. I need to hang on. We need to get to New York. That's Goal Number Two."
She blew her nose again and pocketed the tissue. "I didn't mean to yell at you," she said. "So much for being the big conflict solver, right?"
"You had every right to yell at me," I said. The hope monster was rising again, trying to fool me with its promises and illusions. Dad might have been in a plane that had gone down. He might have fallen to the radiation. Some of it had gotten over there. Or he might be sick and would die like Mom in a few years. It wouldn't take much.
"What's going on in here?" Jerome asked, swaggering inside the station in that radiation suit. I jumped because he looked so scary.
"Nothing," I said. "We're all golden."
"There's even bunny rabbits and cake and unicorns running everywhere," Gina added. She was right behind him, still in her suit. "I don't think we should stay here long. David and the gang will come this way and I'm sure they'll stop here to stock up on supplies. We took a lot of theirs and the food here is way better than the vending machine. It's a whole new level of good."
Terror rose in my stomach. "You guys need to eat and drink before we leave, though. Gina, your eyes are sunken."
"They'll be really sunken if David gets here," she said. "I'm sure they still have weapons. Stuff from that garage. I even saw a blowtorch in there and it works. We need to take a quick bite and then we'll go."
I helped Jerome unzip his suit and he chugged down a Mountain Dew. He packed chips into his pockets. "Those cars don't start," he said. "We were trying them."
"Sorry about not helping out with those," Alana said. "I needed to eat and drink and use the bathroom. The one here's not too bad, by the way."
Gina wolfed down a pack of pretzels and washed them down with some off brand orange soda. Then we grabbed our suits and headed for the door. We didn't need them now. It was dusk and the reddish glow was a dying fire on the horizon. The desert had turned a brownish brick type color. It was the freakiest scene ever.
And down the road in the distance came a single headlight.
The Cat was coming. David had left before full dark.
"We shouldn't have stopped here," Jerome said, almost dropping his suit. "I think they're about seven or eight miles away. We need to hide until they leave."
"Where?" I asked. "Flat, expansive desert."
"Somewhere," Alana said. "It might be dark by time they get here." She faced me. It was my job to the do the math.
"Fifteen miles per hour," I said. "We went about fourteen miles. They'll be here in about...um...well, it's definitely less than an hour. They're already halfway here. So that gives us twenty five minutes?"
"Awesome," Gina said. "Hide."
We scrambled back into the gas station. If we found somewhere David wouldn't look, we might get away with this. The night hadn't fallen yet. It would be too light for us to hide in the dust. The closest hill was too far away. I'd rather take my chances in a building than in the open when David had the Cat. Those tires were huge.
"The bathroom," I said. "We can lock the door. He might think there's a body in there and not open it."
"What if one of them has to pee?" Jerome asked.
"Then they can use the back of the building," Gina said. "Guys won't care. The girls might. Frankly, I wouldn't want to open a bathroom door if I thought there was a body inside. In."
Alana opened the door.
The bathroom was clean. Alana sh
one the flashlight. It was blue-stuff-in-the-toilet clean. Good enough. We all piled in and shut the door. My heart raced.
I felt like I was trapped in a coffin. An elevator.
My mother's death room.
"Breathe," Alana whispered to me. "You've done worse. Just breathe."
I slowed down my breaths. I thought of the headlight getting closer, pulling a van of David's followers in tow. We were outnumbered. Four of us. Six of them. It was easy math. Terrifying math.
I dropped my radiation suit. If David found us, it might be our only bargaining chip and I didn't want to lose it.
We waited for minutes. I wanted to open the door and see how close the Cat had gotten, but I couldn't risk going out onto the deck. I was sure David hadn't spotted us from that far, but he must have closed the distance a couple of miles by now.
"I hate this," Jerome said.
"We all do," Gina told him. "I'm trying to make a joke, but I think I've run dry."
More waiting.
I counted to sixty. Then again, and again. They must have come three miles closer by now.
"I'm checking," Jerome said. "I'll just peek a tiny bit." And then he opened the door, letting in the faint reddish light.
"Jerome!" Alana yelled, running after him.
They were going to get us killed. I ran out after them and tried to grab the back of Alana's shirt but it was no use. Jerome peeked around the front door and ducked back in. He let out some swear words. "They're closer than I thought."
I took his place at the door like a moron.
The Cat was so close I could make out its yellow-orange color and the silver of Dr. Shetlin's van behind it. They had become the size of toy cars. The headlight bobbed, illuminating the dust and turning it a normal brown color for a second. The red in the sky had died down to old brick but the darkness was still not enough to shield us. David had wanted to set out early.
And then I saw why. The tarp from the Visitor Center hung over the glass driver's chamber of the Cat like the world's worst curtain. It looked as if the Cat were trying to wear an upside down cupcake holder, with just a little spot in the front to see through. David and the crew had better than radiation suits now.
I ducked back inside. We all crammed back into the bathroom and shut the door. Alana clicked the flashlight off just as a horrible thought hit me.
“The bodies!”
There was silence for a bit and then Jerome swore. “We put them in a row on the side of the building.”
It was obvious they hadn’t died out there like that. It was too neat. People died the way they lived and that wasn’t lying in a perfect line.
David would see them.
He would know some survivors had been here. If we were lucky, he wouldn’t realize it was us.
A low rumbling sounded from outside a minute later. It was muffled through the door, but unmistakable. The Cat had arrived and it was going to tear our throats out.
And then it stopped.
They were checking out the station.
“Quiet,” Alana whispered.
“I wasn’t planning on yelling,” Gina said.
I held my breath and counted the seconds.
Thirty passed before David’s voice rang out. “Hello?”
He called again and again, five seconds apart, getting louder each time.
“We know someone’s been here,” he said. “We won’t hurt you. We’re rounding up survivors and heading to town. If anyone’s alive in here please let us know. We can take you to help.” He sounded like such a nice guy right now. This was his stranger face, before he lured you in and showed you his true nature. It was the face he had showed me before our descent in the elevator and it made a bad taste rise in the back of my throat. I had fallen for it at first. I might have still been fooled if he hadn’t singled the three of us out for being the scapegoats.
“I think whoever was here has left,” one of the art girls said. What was her name again? Jasmine. “We still have a while to go to get to town.”
“I know how much longer we need to go,” David told her. “You see, we’ve been moving at fifteen miles per hour, so we’ll reach town way before daybreak. It might be worth checking this place for sunscreen.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Sunscreen. I wasn’t sure how much good it would do us but if it worked, it would be way better than the awful radiation suits. But then I shoved the thought away. We had to live long enough to try that.
“And survivors,” David said. “We don’t know if there was another way out of the underground.”
“Come on,” Mina said. “They couldn’t have just walked across the desert unprotected. They would have died like that Dr. Shetlin lady did.”
“Well, someone’s been here within the last few hours. I want to find them,” David said. “Maybe one of those cars work. If we can get one of those, things will be much easier. We can transport everyone to town in a couple of trips. Have a few people stay here for a bit. It’s not bad. I just didn’t think there was anyone else on the surface who survived."
What a mood swing. David was treating everyone so much different now that we, the threats, were gone. Maybe he still needed to establish his power over the group. People were arguing with him and David needed some new tactics until he brought everyone under control.
But no one was saying how horrible it was to leave us underground to rot.
Footsteps spread out through the space on the other side of the door and shelves rattled. One fell over with a loud crash that made me jump. They were ransacking the place. A bit of anger rose up inside. They were disrespecting the guy who had run this station for who knew how long. This was someone’s life they were dismantling.
The pillaging continued and someone finally rattled the doorknob. “Locked,” Mina said.
We all backed towards the other end of the bathroom, squashing together.
“Someone’s probably dead in there,” Tony said. “If I was dying in the bathroom in the most violent way possible, I’d lock the door, too. I wouldn’t want anyone to find me like that later. I don’t think we should open it.”
Someone pounded. “Is anyone in there?” David yelled. He pounded again. “Anyone? Open up and we’ll take you with us. We’re going to town.”
“No one’s in there,” Eric said.
Jasmine cleared her throat. “We still left the others at the Visitor Center.” I could tell it had taken her a lot of bravery to push the words out.
David stepped away from us. “They locked themselves in,” he said. “They can deal with how to get out of there on their own. We can’t get them. Besides, they were trying to get us killed so they could take all the food and water. The end of the world does things to people. I heard them. Jerome wanted the four of them to band together and keep all the supplies for themselves. They even wanted the Cat for themselves. The girls came to pick him up.”
I couldn’t believe the lies he was telling.
“How do we know that for sure?” Jasmine asked. “They brought the Cat back to the Visitor Center. If they just wanted to take Jerome and Alana they would have kept it quiet.”
She had made a mistake. “Go sit in the van,” David ordered. “What are you trying to do? Cause fights so we all split apart and you’ll have more food for yourself? I know food and water are going to be tight. It’s going to make some of us greedy and I understand that. There was no way they could have kept the Cat quiet. What better way to fool all of us than to drive up with something which can, by the way, hold a few people at the most?”
“But…” Jasmine stammered. “What I meant to say was—“
“Van,” David ordered.
I heard her shuffle out. David had a new victim now.
I held my breath. A part of me wanted to run out to her, but that would be no use. We couldn’t save her. I only hoped she was smart enough to run away when she got to town or at least fake David out until she could.
“All right,” David said. “Gather everything th
at’s useful. Sunscreen. Water. Food that’s not spoiled. We’re loading the van and getting out of here. After that, we’re lighting this place.”
Chapter Eleven
“What?” I muttered as a whole new fear rose inside of me.
I thought about the gas pumps outside. The tanks underground. Burning this place would be—
“Light this place?” Eric asked. “What’s that going to do?”
“When other people come this way—if they come this way—they need to know not to waste their time on this place,” David said. “We’re taking everything. We can haul a lot. When we get to Colton there’s not going to be a lot of food there. We’ve got a store, but we all know how small it is.”
I thought about the Quick Stop we had. It was the world’s tiniest grocery store. That wouldn’t last long between David’s gang and whoever else managed to get to Colton.
“But someone could use this place for shelter,” Mina said. “It’s got a roof and it’s out of the sun. I don’t see the point in burning it.”
David knew we were in here.
Or at least, he suspected.
We were a threat. We were mouths that needed to eat.
“This is a huge desert, in case you haven’t noticed,” David said. The happy voice was back, the one you could trust. “Someone who is after us needs supplies, too. We have to slow them down. That means burning our tracks.”
No one protested to that. They were afraid of us.
“Okay,” Tony said. “Makes sense. Slow them down. Let’s start loading.”
“Now what?” Alana asked.
“They’re trying to flush us out,” Jerome said.
Loud crashes sounded from the inside of the station. Why wasn’t anyone protesting anymore? David had gotten everyone on board with sentencing us to death, whether they knew it or not. The ransacking continued for what dragged out to an hour. They really were taking everything, leaving us with no supplies. My stomach rumbled but I pushed that thought away, too. There was something more urgent coming and it started with F.
We’d burn after all. The suits wouldn’t save us from that.