by Sean Platt
They looked hungry. Right now, they were holding it in. Right now, they were on their diets. But that might not last, and they might turn from ordinary people into animals.
Trevor’s pack was surprisingly comfortable. It was well-balanced, the weight inside it close to his body and low. His father had cinched the shoulder straps tight and told him to fasten the extra strap around his waist. With everything tight and adjusted, Trevor found his shoulders and hips carrying the weight, not his back. He could walk this way. Which was good, because he’d had to.
Everyone wore a pack. Meyer had handled everything, from end to end. He’d retrieved the packs from the JetVan’s compartment; he’d stocked them; he’d made sure everyone was cinched tight and carrying enough but not too much. Meyer carried the most. But he told Trevor quietly that he was carrying the second most, and in the moment Trevor found this strangely touching. Raj was seventeen, but skinny and sort of a whiner. Only Trevor, at fifteen, could be trusted to be the group’s second man.
Meyer told everyone what they had in their packs before they stepped outside, but it was a blur to Trevor. He knew that his father’s paranoia was at work again — although he’d packed them as a unit, everyone had enough to survive for a while even if they ended up on their own. There was food, water, a filter or a purification kit or something … Trevor couldn’t remember. Survivalist shit. A packing and preparedness list straight from websites prowled by his father, stirred with all he knew by being Meyer Fucking Dempsey.
Lastly, everyone carried a weapon. His father’s was a pistol, out of sight tucked under his shirt at the small of his back. Trevor waited for his own gun, excited even during this exodus into the End of Days. But Meyer said he didn’t want Trevor “shooting his own ass off” or otherwise providing enemies with potential threats or weapons to use against him. He gave Trevor pepper spray, same as Lila, Piper, and Raj. It stole wind from Trevor’s sails, and made his pack seem heavy, not necessarily responsible.
They exited with packs on their backs. Heads immediately turned. None of the ordinary folks sitting on their cars’ hoods and trunks asked if they were leaving, but their eyes did. Still, they said nothing, attempting to stay ordinary.
Meyer locked the doors, but left the transmission in neutral in case traffic began to move and others decided to push the JetVan out of the way. He stuck rocks under two of the wheels as chocks to keep it from rolling without permission.
Then they squeezed toward the berm, past the double line of cars that had massed on the road’s edge when traffic froze and ambitious drivers tried to pass. Heads turned, but only for a moment. They weren’t the first to leave their vehicle and walk. They were just the best equipped, with their four matching backpacks and a fifth that didn’t quite belong.
They followed the highway for a while — long enough, Meyer said, to get a feel for the gridlock. If he’d been wrong and the traffic jam ended a mile up, they could still turn back. If there was an obvious way out, they could try again, waiting for traffic to figure it out. But so far, nothing.
Trevor watched his father whenever he began to feel nervous. He did the same thing on airplanes when turbulence shook the cabin. Bumps made Trevor anxious, but as long as the flight attendants were calm, everything was probably okay. Same with his father. If he seemed calm and in control, they were fine. For now.
The mood was strange. Dad had been right about what he’d told Lila earlier: Nothing had really happened yet, people were just scared. There were no aliens around the planet. Nobody was enslaved or decimated, nobody’d had so much as a single anal probe. Nothing had crashed into the Earth’s surface, raising a dinosaur-killing cloud of dust to block the sun. The planet hadn’t been knocked off its axis or sent hurtling into the nearest star.
It was a lot of people trying to get from one place to somewhere else. That was it. The Dempseys were headed to their reinforced bunker in Colorado, but where were all these people going? Why didn’t they stay home? What about a few photos from a space app made them think that Duluth was better than Des Moines? Why did they want so badly to get from Toledo to Muncie?
It was fear, making people do something so they wouldn’t have to sit around doing nothing. His father said it gave them the illusion of control in the face of something unknown and uncontrollable. The same reason they’d hoard gasoline. Why did people run to gas stations when strange new things happened? Were they planning to run the doomsday generators that nobody actually had?
Well, nobody but Meyer Dempsey.
After an hour, they took a break. The GPS said they’d gone just four miles, but given Dad’s determined jaw, that was good because it was four miles closer to Colorado.
Only 996 miles to go.
But surely this was just part of the plan. Phase One, as it were. Meyer must be planning something else — some other way to get them moving. What it was, Trevor didn’t know. But he knew that the nods he’d given Piper earlier, when she’d suggested bunkering down in a barn, were his way of humoring her. He’d get them to Colorado. Or — and Trevor feared this was literally true — he’d die trying.
Still, Trevor could see his father’s mental wheels turning. He was running a ceaseless calculation, based ultimately on making their destination. Every minute they spent stopped or walking was a minute lost on the drive. If they were stopped now, it was only so they’d be able to walk faster later. And if they were walking at all, it was only so they could find a new vehicle as quickly as possible. Everything was a trade. A giant game, where beating the clock was their ultimate goal.
Wait now, hurry later.
Or try to hurry now … but ultimately remain stuck.
There was a balance, and Meyer was always working it. Bide their time to find the perfect transportation at the ideal time. It would be worth slowing down now to move fast later. But they didn’t just need a car. They needed a way out of Chicago.
Every minute spent checking the GPS for alternate routes was chewing through battery power — which was no longer unlimited, and would last only as long as the external batteries they all carried.
After a few minutes high on the banked berm (Trevor thought his father was allowing distance in case someone broke formation and decided to come at them), they rose, reshouldered their packs, and walked toward a freeway exit ahead. They were only halfway down the exit ramp before Meyer stopped. The rest of them stopped behind him.
Piper looked at him.
“What?”
“We’re closer to Chicago than I thought.”
Piper looked to the city center clearly visible on the horizon. “We knew that.”
“I screwed up. We should have left the highway a long time ago.”
Trevor looked into the sky, where the sun had passed its apex. They’d come to a stop over five hours ago now, and it was into the afternoon. “A long time ago” could mean anything — distance or time.
“And?” said Piper.
“These neighborhoods are far too urban.” He looked down the exit ramp. “I’d rather stay on the highway, now that we’re this close to the city.”
“Isn’t that a little racist?” said Lila.
“It’s about population density, Lila. And resources. We don’t really want to be caught hiking through somewhere low on resources but high on people while wearing these packs.”
Raj looked ahead at the highway’s parking lot. “Lots of people up here,” he said.
“Lots of stocked cars,” Meyer replied. “Lots of people from out of town. A crowd always defaults to its average, Lila. The people up here still have what probably feels like enough. Down there? Maybe not. All it takes is one group to decide they should take what isn’t theirs. It’s like tossing a match. Flick that match into an environment like this highway, I don’t think it’ll catch quite. But a lot of these neighborhoods are dry grass. Someone decides to start a riot, others are likely to agree.”
“I think we should go through, hike away from the city, and keep going until there’s s
ome open land,” said Raj. “Wasn’t that your plan?”
“Sure. But I thought we were farther out. We spent too much time arguing about the end of the world and weren’t paying attention.”
“Meyer …” Piper began.
“I think we should go,” Raj said, looking down the exit ramp. “It’s still pretty bright out.”
“No offense, Raj, but I don’t really care what you think.”
Raj looked up, offended.
“Feel free to go down there. But my family is going to keep following the expressway. We’ll take one of the other arteries south. Another expressway. For now, there’s still safety in numbers.”
“There’s only five of us,” said Lila, holding Raj’s arm.
“I meant numbers of cars. Of people driving on the expressway.”
“You mean white people,” said Lila.
“That’s not what I mean, Lila.”
“I agree with Raj. You said it yourself. Nothing has even happened yet. Everyone is worried about themselves right now. They’re not going to do anything to us.”
“Exactly,” Meyer said. “Everyone is worried about themselves right now.”
“The sooner we leave the highway, the sooner we’re away from Chicago. You want to go closer. Look, Daddy!” She pointed toward the city center, where Trevor could clearly make out the Sears Tower. The expressway seemed to curve directly toward it.
“Not yet,” said Meyer.
“You’re the one who said we’d buy a car! How are we going to even use a car up here?”
“We’ll buy one later, Lila. But if we’re dead, a car doesn’t …”
“Hey,” said Piper.
Meyer stopped, but his eyes stayed certain.
Raj faced him, looking defiant. Lila was at his side. They looked like they fancied themselves as Romeo and Juliet: two lovers facing off against authority, knowing stubborn love would conquer all.
“I’m going this way,” said Raj. “It’s stupid to keep walking toward the city.”
“Suit yourself.”
“I’m going with him, Daddy.”
His voice was even, cold. Trevor knew he was calling Lila’s bluff, but his words still chilled Trevor to the bone. “Go ahead.”
They stared at each other for a few still moments: Raj and Lila on one side and Meyer on the other. Piper and Trevor were neutral, watching with wide eyes to see what would happen.
Finally Raj shook his head, exhaled dramatically, then marched up the ramp past the others. After a bit, Lila followed. They were ten feet farther down the packed expressway before Raj turned and said, “Well?”
Meyer began walking without expression, but when Trevor looked up he could see him smirk.
“Dad?” Trevor said after they’d been walking for a while, once Lila and Raj were ahead and out of earshot. “Not that I’m questioning your idea or anything, but we are walking right into the city … ?” He let the sentence hang, his final note begging an answer.
“For now. We can cut south in a bit, on one of the big expressways; I’d have to check to see which. We can cut down to 80. If that’s not clear, we can get off then. It should be safer, assuming the shit will keep from hitting the fan for just a little longer.”
Trevor felt another note of respect radiating from his father. First he’d given him the second-heaviest pack, and now he was casually swearing. He sometimes swore around his children, but it was rare that he’d swear when talking directly to them — the way he might talk to an adult. Or a colleague.
“You’re not worried about getting off the road then, assuming the sh …” But he couldn’t echo the word to his father, not yet. “… assuming that doesn’t happen quite yet?”
“There will be less of a crowd. There should be more people who aren’t desperate.”
“But they could still be … you know … going crazy?”
“Yes, but more numbers means more problems, all other things being equal. Not just because there are more hands to hold weapons, say, but because people are stupid when they’re in crowds, Trevor. They stop thinking for themselves and just ease into whatever everyone else is thinking. We need to stay where people aren’t thinking too crazy yet, or where there are fewer people.”
Trevor looked at the never-ending line of cars. He knew Lila and Raj had already raised this objection, but it sure seemed like the expressway was the wrong place to be if they were looking for smaller numbers.
“It’ll be fine.” Dad wrapped his arm around Trevor’s shoulders. “Nothing bad will happen to us up here. Not with all these out-of-towners with full cars, in broad daylight.”
But he was wrong.
Fifteen minutes later, the riot started.
CHAPTER 18
Day Three, Afternoon
Outside Chicago
The riot began with a crash, then blazed like wildfire.
Meyer was walking the berm, Piper in front of him and Trevor far off to the side as if avoiding her, sullen as usual. Lila and Raj were twenty or thirty steps ahead, still quiet and radiating defiance. Raj had been beaten down about the exit, so he was pretending to lead the group to reclaim what little he could of his dignity. He had Lila beside him. Right now he’d be warring for her attention, trying to establish himself as the superior male. But Meyer was mature and patient enough to see it for what it was: pomp and chest-pounding. Let Raj fluff feathers for his girl. What Meyer said went, and would continue to go. Raj wasn’t supposed to be here. He could stay and enjoy Meyer’s supplies … but only if he kept his head down and obeyed when it mattered.
Without warning, an engine flared to violent life somewhere in the middle of the jammed traffic ahead. A high-pitched squeal of rubber on pavement was followed almost immediately by a muted crash. A grinding noise, then another squeal of tires — this one slightly less piercing — and another crash.
Heads were turning all around, peering toward the commotion like fans in a stadium. Profiles become the backs of heads. To the edges, he could see faces: dumb, vacant, vaguely frightened yet somehow intrigued. He looked back toward the commotion, where those closer were beginning to swarm like insects. Someone shouted. There were a few smaller banging sounds — many metallic, like striking sheet metal with a sledge. Many were more muted: a wooden bat striking wood. Or dirt. Or meat.
There was a high-pitched scream. Pain or desperation.
They skirted the watching crowd. Meyer had one arm around Piper’s shoulders within seconds. He put his other around Trevor once he’d dragged Piper over to reach him.
They had to stay back. The something was none of their business.
The crowd shifted, and Meyer saw what had happened. Someone in one of the middle lanes seemed to have reached his breaking point. He’d revved his engine and plowed into the vehicle in front of him. Then he’d reversed and struck the car behind. Meyer watched the car lurch again, striking the red sedan from the rear and making it jolt forward, butting into a white SUV two cars up. The sheer momentum of the kamikaze was opening a hole in traffic.
Now the car seemed to be jockeying around, trying to edge sideways. As if he could barrel his way through four rows of cars and escape to the berm, where he’d have to off road for his life.
Again, someone screamed.
Under it all, Meyer thought he could hear a low, furious, animal growl: the car’s driver, screaming, out of his mind.
Most of the people around the hole in the crowd had backed up, but some had been bold and moved forward, striking the car with whatever they could find, even if it was only their fists. One man in jeans and a light jacket jumped on the car’s hood, then held on while it attempted to shift around. But it was stuck somewhere; the engine roared, and the wheels spun in place, now raising a thin line of black smoke.
The man on the windshield pounded the glass, which was already webbed and starting to shatter. For a few moments, he was alone — the lone man among the spectators willing to act. Then his will seemed to spread, and others climbed on the car,
like ants on a lollipop.
Whatever had been pinning the car broke free with a clang. It skidded forward, this time canting sideways. It struck a small car to one side. The impact’s force threw the vehicle sideways.
There was a woman’s scream. Meyer could see activity different from the rest: flailing arms, a head whipping dark hair around in pain. She’d been pinned.
“That woman is hurt!” said Raj.
But Meyer was watching the crowd shift. More people were moving forward. They weren’t precisely coming to help. They were coming forward because others had, and because it was what the group mind had told them to do.
“We have to go,” said Meyer, now looking toward the berm: a gap in the freeway sound barrier.
“That woman is pinned!” said Raj.
A cold switch flipped inside Meyer. “Not our business,” he said.
Someone had retrieved a tire iron from his trunk. Meyer watched the man run forward and smash the battering ram’s window. People near the inner circle watched it happen, then moved. Other trunks. More tire irons. Meyer saw baseball bats, possibly fetched from children’s luggage.
Individuality in flight, the previously separate minds in the crowd were becoming a hive.
“But she’s hurt!” Raj was already moving forward.
“Come on.” Meyer was up on the berm, holding onto Piper and Trevor as if he might drop them. He made his hand, around Piper’s upper arm, into a beckoning wave. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”
Raj threw a venomous look back at Meyer. “We have to help her. If we don’t, nobody will.”
It was true. The woman was still screaming, but she was already mostly forgotten. The surging crowd’s attention had focused on the car, which had now stopped, engine running, windows smashed in one by one. Hands reached into the cab. Dragged the driver out and down to the concrete. In circles around the commotion, others began to move.